[587]Halliwell's "Life of Shakespeare."

[588]Born 1564, died 1616. He adapted plays as early as 1591. The first play entirely from his pen appeared in 1593.—Payne Collier.

[589]Mr. Halliwell and other commentators try to prove that at this time the preliminary trothplight was regarded as the real marriage; that this trothplight had taken place, and that there was therefore no irregularity in Shakespeare's conduct.

[590]Halliwell, 123.

[591]All these anecdotes are traditions, and consequently more or less doubtful; but the other facts are authentic.

[592]Terms of an extant document. He is named along with Burbage and Greene.

[593]Sonnet 110.

[594]See Sonnets 91 and 111; also "Hamlet," III. 2. Many of Hamlet's words would come better from the mouth of an actor than a prince. See also the 66th Sonnet, "Tired with all these."

[595]Sonnet 29.

[596]"Hamlet," III. 1.

[597]Sonnet 111.

[598]Anecdote written in 1602 on the authority of Tooley the actor.

[599]The Earl of Southampton was nineteen years old when Shakespeare dedicated his "Adonis" to him.

[600]See Titian's picture. Loves of the Gods, at Blenheim.

[601]"Venus and Adonis," lines 548-553.

[602]Ibid. lines 55-60.

[603]Ibid, lines 853-858.

[604]Compare the first pieces of Alfred de Musset, "Contes d'Italie et d'Espagne."

[605]Crawley, quoted by Ph. Chasles, "Études sur Shakspeare."

[606]A famed French courtesan (1613-1650), the heroine of a drama of that name, by Victor Hugo, having for its subject-matter: "Love purifies everything."—Tr.

[607]Sonnet 138.

[608]Two characters in Molière's "Misanthrope." The scene referred to is Act V. Scene 7.—Tr.

[609]Sonnet 142.

[610]Sonnet 95.

[611]Sonnet 98.

[612]Ibid.

[613]Sonnet 99.

[614]Sonnet 151.

[615]Sonnet 151.

[616]Sonnet 144; also the "Passionate Pilgrim," 2.

[617]This new interpretation of the Sonnets is due to the ingenious and learned conjectures of M. Ph. Chasles.—For a short history of these Sonnets, see Dyce's "Shakspeare," I. pp. 96-102. This learned editor says: "I contend that allusions scattered through the whole series are not to be hastily referred to the personal circumstances of Shakspeare."—Tr.

[618]Miranda, Desdemona, Viola. The following are the first words of the Duke in "Twelfth Night":
"If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet
south,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odor! Enough;
no more:
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh
art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters
there.
Of what validity and pitch soever,
But falls into abatement and low price.
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is
fancy
That it alone is high-fantastical."

[619]H. Chettle, in repudiating Greene's sarcasm, attributed it to him.

[620]Dyce, "Shakespeare," I. 27: "Of French and Italian, I apprehend, he knew but little."—Tr.

[621]Sonnet 29.

[622]Sonnet 73.

[623]Sonnet 71.

[624]The part in which he excelled was that of the ghost in "Hamlet."

[625]Greene's "A Groatsworth of Wit," etc.

[626]"He was a respectable man. A good word; what does it mean? He kept a gig."—From Thurtell's trial for the murder of Weare.

[627]The model of an optimist, the hero of one of Voltaire's tales.—Tr.

[628]See his portraits, and in particular his bust.

[629]Especially in his later plays: "Tempest, Twelfth Night."

[630]"Hamlet," III. 3.

[631]Act III. Scene 4.

[632]Act III. Scene 4.

[633]This is why, in the eyes of a writer of the seventeenth century, Shakespeare's style is the most obscure, pretentious, painful, barbarous, and absurd, that could be imagined.

[634]Shakespeare's vocabulary is the most copious of all. It comprises about 15,000 words; Milton's only 8,000.

[635]See the conversation of Laertes and his sister, and of Laertes and Polonius, in "Hamlet." The style is foreign to the situation; and we see here plainly the natural and necessary process of Shakespeare's thought.

[636]"Winter's Tale," I. 2.

[637]One of Molière's characters in "Tartuffe."—Tr.

[638]"Romeo and Juliet," III. 5.

[639]"Henry VIII," II. 3, and many other scenes.

[640]"Much Ado about Nothing." See also the manner in which Henry V in Shakespeare's "King Henry V" pays court to Katharine of France (V. 2).

[641]Ibid. II. 1.

[642]Act IV. 2.

[643]Second part of "Henry VI," IV. 6.

[644]"Henry VI," 2d part, IV. 2, 6, 7.

[645]"King Lear," III. 7.

[646]"The Tempest," IV. 1.

[647]See "Troilus and Cressida," II. 3, the jesting manner in which the generals drive on this fierce brute.

[648]"Cymbeline," II. 3.

[649]Ibid. III. 5.

[650]"Romeo and Juliet," I. 3.

[651]"Romeo and Juliet," II. 5.

[652]Ibid. III. 5.

[653]"Romeo and Juliet," II. 4.

[654]"Much Ado about Nothing," II. 1.

[655]"Romeo and Juliet," II. 1.

[656]Ibid. I. 4.

[657]"Romeo and Juliet," I. 4.

[658]First part of "King Henry IV," III. 3.

[659]First Part of "King Henry IV," IV. 2.

[660]Ibid. II. 4.

[661]"Othello," III. 3.

[662]Ibid.

[663]Ibid.

[664]"Othello," III. 3.

[665]"Cymbeline," III. 5.

[666]"Coriolanus," I. 3.

[667]Ibid.

[668]"Romeo and Juliet," I. 5.

[669]"The Tempest," III. 1.

[670]"King Lear," IV. 7.

[671] "O ye're well met: the hoarded plague o' the gods
Requite your love!
If that I could for weeping, you should hear—
Nay, and you shall hear some....
I'll tell thee what; yet go:
Nay but thou shalt stay too: I would my son
Were in Arabia, and thy tribe before him,
His good sword in his hand."—Coriolanus, IV. 2.

See again, "Coriolanus," I. 3, the frank and abandoned triumph of a woman of the people, "I sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child than now in first seeing he had proved himself a man."

[672]Ibid. I. 3.

[673]"Othello," II. 3.

[674]Ibid. II. 1.

[675]"Othello," II. 1.

[676]Ibid. IV. 1.

[677]See the like cynicism and scepticism in Richard III. Both begin by slandering human nature, and both are misanthropical of malice prepense.

[678]"Othello," II. 3.

[679]See his conversation with Brabantio, then with Roderigo, Act I.

[680]See again, in Timon, and Hotspur more particularly, perfect examples of vehement and unreasoning imagination.

[681]"Coriolanus," I. 9.

[682]Ibid. I. 6.

[683]Ibid. I. 9.

[684]"Coriolanus," I. 9.

[685]Ibid.

[686]Ibid. II. 3.

[687]Ibid. II. 1.

[688]"Coriolanus," III. 1.

[689]Ibid.

[690]Ibid.

[691]Ibid. III. 2.

[692]"Coriolanus," III. 3.

[693]Ibid.

[694]Ibid.

[695]Ibid. V. 2.

[696]"Macbeth," I. 3.

[697]Ibid. II. 1.

[698]"Macbeth," II. 2.

[699]Ibid.

[700]Ibid.

[701]Ibid. II. 3.

[702]"Macbeth," II. 3.

[703]Ibid. III. 4.

[704]Ibid. III. 2.

[705]"Macbeth," III. 4.

[706]Ibid. IV. 3.

[707]"Macbeth," V. 5.

[708]Goethe, "Wilhelm Meister."

[709]"Hamlet," I. 2.

[710]Ibid. I. 5.

[711]"Hamlet," I. 5.

[712]Ibid. III. 2.

[713]"Hamlet," II, 2.

[714]Ibid. III, 1.

[715]Ibid. IV. 3.

[716]"Hamlet," V. 1.

[717]A French physician (1772-1844), celebrated for his endeavors to improve the treatment of the insane.—Tr.

[718]"Twelfth Night, As You Like it, Tempest, Winter's Tale," etc., "Cymbeline, Merchant of Venice," etc.

[719]"Merchant of Venice," V. 1.

[720]In English, a word is wanting to express the French "fantaisie" used by M. Taine, in describing this scene: what in music is called a capriccio. Tennyson calls the "Princess" a medley, but it is ambiguous.—Tr.

[721]"As You Like It," III. 2.

[722]Ibid. IV. 1.

[723]"As You Like It," V, 2.

[724]"As You Like It," II. 7.

[725]Ibid. II. 1.

[726]Ibid. II. 7.

[727]Compare Jacques with the Alceste of Molière. It is the contrast between a misanthrope through reasoning and one through imagination.

[728]"As You Like It," III. 2.

[729]Ibid. II. 7.

[730]"As You Like It," II. 7.

[731]"Midsummer Night's Dream," I. 1.

[732]"Midsummer Night's Dream," IV. 1.

[733]"Midsummer Night's Dream," III. 1.

[734]Ibid. IV. 1.

[735]Ibid. III. 2.

[736]Ibid. IV. 1.

[737]"Midsummer Night's Dream," II. 1.

[738]"Tempest," V. 1.

[739]There is the same law in the organic and in the moral world. It is what Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire calls unity of composition.