Shakspere.

Act I. scene ii.

The second scene introduces the heroes of the piece, Palamon and Arcite. They are two youths of the blood-royal of Thebes, who follow the banners of their sovereign with a sense that obedience is their duty, but under a sorrowful conviction that his cause is unjust, and their country rotten at the core. The scene is a dialogue between them, occupied in lamentations and repinings over the dissolute manners of their native Thebes. has the characteristics of Shakspere. Its broken versification points out Shakspeare; the quaintness of some conceits is his; and several of the phrases and images have much of his pointedness, brevity, or obscurity. The scene, though not lofty in tone, does not want interest, and contains some extremely original illustrations. But quotations will be multiplied abundantly before we have done; and their number must not be increased by the admission of any which are not either unusually good or very distinctly characteristic of their author. Some lines of the scene have been already given.

Act I. scene iii.

The third scene has the farewell commendations of the young Emilia and her sister to Perithous, when he sets out to join Theseus, then before the Theban walls, and a subsequent conversation of the two ladies. is probably all Shakspere's. Much of this scene has Shakspeare's stamp deeply cut upon it: it is probably all his. Act I. scene iii. has the characteristics of Shakspere. It is identified, not only by several others of the qualities marking the first scene, but more particularly by the wealth of its allusion, and by a closeness, directness, and pertinency of reply which Fletcher's most spirited dialogues do not reach. It presents more than one exceed[33:1]ingly beautiful climax; a figure which repeatedly occurs in the play, and is always used with peculiar energy.

Scene—Before the Gates of Athens.—Enter Perithous, Hippolita, and Emilia.

Shakspere metaphor,

phrase.

Female friendship: the description has Shakspere's characteristics.

[34:1]The description of female friendship which follows is familiar to all lovers of poetry. It is disfigured by one or two strained conceits, and some obscurities arising partly from errors in the text: but the beauty of the sketch in many parts is extreme, and its character distinctly that of Shakspeare, vigorous and even quaint, thoughtful and sometimes almost metaphysical, instinct with animation, and pregnant with fancy; offering, in short, little resemblance to the manner of any poet but Shakspeare, and the most unequivocal opposition to Fletcher's.

Shakspere fancy.

Act I. scene iv. Shakspere's.

The fourth scene is laid in a battle-field near Thebes, and Theseus enters victorious. The three queens fall down with thanks before him; and a herald announces the capture of the Two Noble Kinsmen, wounded and senseless, and scarcely retaining the semblance of life. Has Shakspere's words and quibbles. The phraseology of this short scene is like Shakspeare's, being brief and energetic, and in one or two instances passing into quibbles.

Act I. scene v. is Shakspere's.

The last scene of this act is of a lyrical cast, and comprised in a few lamentations spoken by the widowed queens over the corpses of their dead lords. It ends with this couplet:

Act II. not Shakspere's.

In the Second Act no part seems to have been taken by Shakspeare. The prose of II. i. is not from Chaucer, It commences with one of those scenes which are introduced into the play in departure from the narrative of Chaucer, forming an underplot which is clearly the work of a different artist from many of the leading parts of the drama. The Noble Kinsmen, cured of their wounds, have been committed to strait and perpetual prison in Athens, and the first part of this scene is a prose dialogue between their jailor and a suitor of his daughter. The maiden's admiration of the prisoners is then exhibited. and is very dull: it is not Shakspere's. You will see afterwards, that there are several circumstances besides the essential dulness of this prose part, which fully absolve Shakspeare from the charge of having written it.

The verse of Act II. scene i.

The versified portion of this scene, which follows the prose dialogue among the inferior characters, presents the incident on which the interest of the story hinges, the commencement of the fatal and chimerical passion, which, inspiring both the knights towards the young Emilia, severs the bonds of friendship which had so long held them together. The noble prisoners are discovered in their turret-chamber, looking out on the palace-garden, which the lady afterwards enters. They speak [35:1]in a highly animated strain of that world from which they are secluded, and find themes of consolation for the hard lot which had overtaken them. The dialogue is in many respects admirable. The verse of Act II. scene i. has the characteristics of Fletcher: double endings, end-stopt lines, vague images, It possesses much eloquence of description, and the character of the language is smooth and flowing; the versification is good and accurate, frequent in double endings, and usually finishing the sense with the line; and one or two allusions occur, which, being favourites of Fletcher's, may be in themselves a strong presumption of his authorship; the images too have in some instances a want of distinctness in application or a vagueness of outline, which could be easily paralleled from Fletcher's acknowledged writings. but romantic; The style is fuller of allusions than his usually is, but the images are more correct and better kept from confusion than Shakspeare's; some of them indeed are exquisite, but rather in the romantic and exclusively poetical tone of Fletcher, than in the natural and universal mode of feeling which animates Shakspeare. slack dialogue.The dialogue too proceeds less energetically than Shakspeare's, falling occasionally into a style of long-drawn disquisition which Fletcher often substitutes for the quick and dramatic conversations of the great poet. II. i. one of the finest scenes that Fletcher ever wrote. On the whole, however, this scene, if it be Fletcher's, (of which I have no doubt,) is among the very finest he ever wrote; and there are many passages in which, while he preserves his own distinctive marks, he has gathered no small portion of the flame and inspiration of his immortal friend and assistant. In the following speeches there are images and phrases, which are either identically Fletcher's, or closely resemble his, and the whole cast both of versification and idiom is strictly his:—

Act II. scene i. Fletcher's.

Picture fully wrought out.

Romantic, pathetic sketch.

In this scene there is one train of metaphors which is perhaps as characteristic of Fletcher as any thing that could be produced. Lines from II. i. on page 38, of slow orderly development of ideas, markt by Fletcher's characteristics. It is marked by a slowness of association which he often shews. Several allusions are successively introduced; but by each, as it appears, we are prepared for and can anticipate the next; we see the connection of ideas in the poet's mind through which the one has sprung out of the other, and that all are but branches, of which one original thought is the root. No leap to the end, and off with a fresh bound, like Shakspere. All this is the work of [37:3]a less fertile fancy and a more tardy understanding than Shakspeare's: he would have leaped over many of the intervening steps, and, reaching at once the most remote particular of the series, would have immediately turned away to weave some new chain of thought:—

All workt out thro' every step.

But the contentment of the prison is to be interrupted. The fair Emilia appears beneath, walking in the garden "full of branches green," skirting the wall of the tower in which the princes are confined. She converses with her attendant, and Palamon from the dungeon-grating beholds her as she gathers the flowers of spring. He ceases to reply to Arcite, and stands absorbed in silent ecstasy.

The beauty of the maiden impresses Arcite no less violently than it previously had his kinsman; and he challenges with great heat a right to love her. The sharp and spirited quarrel between the Kinsmen, not Shakspere's. An animated and acrimonious dialogue ensues, in which Palamon reproachfully pleads his prior admiration of the lady, and insists on his cousin's obligation to become his abettor instead of his rival. It is spirited even to excess; and probably Shakspeare would have tempered, or abstained from treating so sudden and perhaps unnatural an access of anger and jealousy, and so utter an abandonment to [38:1]its vehemence, as that under which the fiery Palamon is here represented as labouring.

Act II. scene i. Fletcher's.

Fletcher has left out Chaucer's making the Knights 'sworn brethren.'

In transferring his story from Chaucer, the poet has here been guilty of an oversight. The old poet fixes a character of positive guilt on Arcite's prosecution of his passion, by relating a previous agreement between the two cousins, by which either, engaging in any adventure whether of love or war, had an express right to the co-operation of the other. Hence Arcite's interference with his cousin's claim becomes, with Chaucer, a direct infringement of a knightly compact; while in the drama, no deeper blame attaches to it, than as a violation of the more fragile rules imposed by the generous spirit of friendship.

In the midst of the angry conference, Arcite is called to the Duke to receive his freedom; and Palamon is placed in stricter confinement, and removed from the quarter of the tower overlooking the garden.

Act II. scene ii. (Weber, sc. iii. Littledale) is Fletcher's.

In the second scene of this act, Arcite, wandering in the [39:1]neighbourhood of Athens, soliloquizes on the decree which had banished him from the Athenian territory; and, falling in with a band of country people on their way to games in the city, conceives the notion of joining in the celebration under some poor disguise, in the hope of finding means to remain within sight of his fancifully beloved mistress. Act II. scene ii. iii. (Weber, sc. iii. iv. Littledale), Neither this scene, nor the following, in which the jailor's daughter meditates on the perfections of Palamon, and intimates an intention of assisting him to escape, have any thing in them worthy of particular notice.

Act II. scene iv. (Weber, sc. v. Littledale),

In the fourth scene, Arcite, victorious in the athletic games, is crowned by the Duke, and preferred to the service of Emilia.

Act II. scene v. (Weber, sc. vi. Littledale), are all Fletcher's.

In the last scene of the second act, the jailor's daughter announces that she has effected Palamon's deliverance from prison, and that he lies hidden in a wood near the city, the scenery of which is prettily described.

Act III. scene i. is Shakspere's.

Nothing in the Third Act can with confidence be attributed to Shakspeare, except the first scene. This opening scene is laid in the wood where Palamon has his hiding-place. Arcite enters; and a monologue, describing his situation and feelings, is, as in Chaucer, overheard by Palamon, who starts out of the bush in which he had crouched, and shakes his fettered hands at his false kinsman. Arcite's first speech has Shakspere's clear images, and familiar dress, nervous expression, &c. A dialogue of mutual reproach ensues; and Arcite departs with a promise to return, bringing food for the outcast, and armour to fit him for maintaining, like a knight, his right to the lady's love. The commencing speech of Arcite has much of Shakspeare's clearness of imagery, and of the familiarity of dress which he often loves to bestow upon allusion; it has also great nerve of expression and calmness of tone, with at least one play on words which is quite in his manner, and one (perhaps more) of his identical phrases. The text seems faulty in one part.

Act III. sc. i. is Shakspere's.

Shaksperean phrases.

Shakspere phrase.

There is great spirit, also, in what follows. Some phrases, here again, are precisely Shakspeare's; and several parts of the dialogue have much of his pointed epigrammatic style. The massive accumulation of reproaches which Palamon hurls on Arcite is, in its energy, more like him than his assistant; and the opposition of character between Palamon and his calmer kinsman, is well kept up; but the dialogue cannot be accounted one of the best in the play.

Shaksperean string of epithets.

Shaksperean word-play.

Act III. scene ii.

In the second scene, the only speaker is the jailor's daughter, who, having lost Palamon in the wood, begins to shew symptoms of unsettled reason. There is some pathos in several parts of her soliloquy, but little vigour in the expression, or novelty in the thoughts.

Act III. scene iii.

The third scene is an exchange of brief speeches between the two knights. Arcite brings provisions for his kinsman, and the means of removing his fetters, and departs to fetch the armour. is probably Fletcher's, and not Shakspere's. In most respects the scene is not very characteristic of either writer, but leans towards Fletcher; and one argument for him might be drawn from an interchange of sarcasms between the kinsmen, in which they retort on each other, former amorous adventures: such a dialogue is quite like Fletcher's men of gaiety; and needless degradation of his principal characters, is a fault of which Shakspeare is not guilty. You may be able, hereafter, to see more distinctly the force of this reason. The scene contains one strikingly animated burst of jealous suspicion and impatience.

Act III. scenes iv. v.

In the next two scenes, placed in the forest, the jailor's daughter has reached the height of frenzy. Gerrold has no spark of humour. She meets the country[42:1]men who had encountered Arcite, and who are now headed by the learned and high-fantastical schoolmaster Gerrold, a personage who has the pedantry of Shakspeare's Holofernes, without one solitary spark of his humour. They are preparing a dance for the presence of the duke, and the maniac is adopted into their number, to fill up a vacancy. The duke and his train appear,—the pedagogue prologuizes,—the clowns dance,—and their self-satisfied Coryphaeus apologizes and epiloguizes. Act III. scene iv. v. Fletcher's. Some of Fletcher's very phrases and forms of expression have been traced in these two scenes.

Act III. scene vi.

We have then, in the sixth and last scene of this act, the interrupted combat of the two princes. Fletcher's, not Shakspere's. The scene is a spirited and excellent one; but its tone is Fletcher's, not Shakspeare's. Has not Shakspere's grasp of imagery. The raillery and retort of the dialogue is more lightly playful than his, and less antithetical and sententious; and though there are fine images, they are not seized with the grasp which Shakspeare would have given, sometimes harsh, but always at least decided. Some of the illustrations have been quoted (page 17). The knightly courtesy with which the princes arm each other is well supported; and their dignity of greeting before they cross their swords, is fine, exceedingly fine. Nothing can be more beautifully conceived than the change which comes over the temper of the generous Palamon, when he stands on the verge of mortal battle with his enemy. Fletcher's sweet versification and romantic phraseology. His usual heat and impatience give place to the most becoming calmness. The versification is very sweet, and the romantic air of the phraseology is very much Fletcher's, especially towards the end of the following quotation.

(They bow several ways, then advance and stand.)

Act III. scene vi.

The combat is interrupted by the approach of the Duke and his court; and Palamon, refusing to give back or conceal himself, appears before Theseus, and declares his own name and situation, and the presumptuous secret of Arcite. is in Fletcher's style. The scene is good, but in the flowing style of Fletcher, not the more manly one of Shakspeare. Death-penalty for the losing knight, a good addition to Chaucer. The sentence of death, which the duke, in the first moments of his anger, pronounces on the two princes, is recalled on the petition of Hippolita and her sister, on condition that the rivals shall meantime depart, and return within a month, each accompanied by three knights, to determine in combat the possession of Emilia; and death by the block is denounced against the knights who shall be vanquished. Some of these circumstances are slight deviations from Chaucer; and the laying down of the severe penalty is well imagined, as an addition to the tragic interest, giving occasion to a very impressive scene in the last act.

Act IV. all Fletcher's.

The Fourth Act may safely be pronounced wholly Fletcher's. Wants all the leading features of Shakspere's style.All of it, except one scene, is taken up by the episodical adventures of the jailor's daughter; and, while much of it is poetical, it wants the force and originality, and, indeed, all the prominent features of Shakspeare's manner, either of thought, illustration, or expression. There are conversations in which are described, pleasingly enough, the madness of the unfortunate girl, and the finding of her in a sylvan spot, by her former wooer; but when the maniac herself appears, the tone and subjects of the dialogue become more objectionable.

Act IV. scene ii.

In the second scene of this act, the only one which bears reference to the main business of the piece, Emilia first muses over the pictures of her two suitors, and then hears from a messenger, in presence of Theseus and his attendants, a description, (taken in [44:1]its elements from the Knightes Tale,) of the warriors who were preparing for the field along with the champion lovers. Emilia's soliloquy on the pictures, not Shakspere's. In the soliloquy of the lady, while the poetical spirit is well preserved, the alternations of feeling are given with an abruptness and a want of insight into the nicer shades of association, which resemble the extravagant stage effects of the 'King and No King,' infinitely more than the delicate yet piercing glance with which Shakspeare looks into the human breast in the 'Othello'; the language, too, is smoother and less powerful than Shakspeare's, and one or two classical allusions are a little too correct and studied for him. Act IV. scene ii. Fletcher's. One image occurs, not the clearest or most chastened, in which Fletcher closely repeats himself:—

His description of Arcite, paralleld in his Philaster.

Act V. is Shakspere's,

In the Fifth Act we again feel the presence of the Master of the Spell. Several passages in this portion are marked by as striking tokens of his art as anything which we read in 'Macbeth' or 'Coriolanus.' The whole act, a very long one, may be boldly attributed to him, with the exception of one episodical scene.

except scene iv. (Weber: sc. ii. Littledale).

The time has arrived for the combat. Three temples are exhibited, as in Chaucer, in which the rival Knights, and the [45:2]Lady of their Vows, respectively pay their adorations. One principal aim of their supplications is to learn the result of the coming contest; but the suspense is kept up by each of the Knights receiving a favourable response, and Emilia a doubtful one. Act V. sc. ii.[45:3] (i. L.) is lower in key. Act V. sc. i. iii. (Weber: both i. Littledale) are Shakspere's all through. Three scenes are thus occupied, the second of which is in somewhat a lower key than the other two; but even in it there is much beauty; and in the first and third the tense dignity and pointedness of the language, the gorgeousness and overflow of illustration, and the reach, the mingled familiarity and elevation of thought, are admirable, inimitable, and decisive. From these exquisite scenes there is a temptation to quote too largely.

Act V. scene i.

In the first scene, Theseus ushers the Kinsmen and their Knights into the Temple of Mars, and leaves them there. After a short and solemn greeting, the Kinsmen embrace for the last time, Palamon and his friends retire, and Arcite and his remain and offer up their devotions to the deity of the place. Spirit and Language Shakspere's. A fine seriousness of spirit breathes through the whole scene, and the language is alive with the most magnificent and delicate allusion. In Arcite's prayer the tone cannot be mistaken. His reflection on Fortune and strife. The enumeration of the god's attributes is coloured by all that energetic depth of feeling with which Shakspeare in his historical dramas so often turns aside to meditate on the changes of human fortune and the horrors of human enmity.[46:1]