Mentions of Shakespeare as a writer from Greene to Rowe from Shakespeare and his Critics, by F. E. Halliday, 1958
ROBERT GREENE Groats-worth of Wit. Sept., 1592. (The reference is to 3 Henry 171, and Greene parodies the line in that play, “Oh Tiger’s heart wrapt in a woman’s hide.”)
There is an vpstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey.
HENRY CHETTLE Epistle to Kind-Harts Dreams, Dec. 1592. (Chettle apologises, apparently to Shakespeare, for the part he had taken in preparing Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit for the press.),
I am as sory as if the origin all fault had beene my fault, because my selfe haue seene his demeanor no lesse ciuill than he, exelent in the qualitie he professes: Besides, diuers of worship haue reported his uprightnes of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing, that aprooues his Art.
FRANCIS MERES Palladis Tamia: Wits Treasury. Sept. 1598. (Meres was a Cambridge man; he was in London 1597-8, and later rector and schoolmaster at Wing, Rutland.)
As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to liue in Pythagoras: so the sweete wittie soule of Quid liues in mellifluous & hony-tongued Shakespeare, witnes his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred Sonnets among his priuate friends, &c.
As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy among the Latines: so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage; for Comedy, witnes his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Loue labors lost, his Loue labours woonne, his Midsummers night dreams, & his Merchant of Venice; for Tragedy his Richard the 2, Richard the 3, Henry the 4, King Iohn, Titus Andronicus and his Romeo and Iuliet.
As Epius Stolo said, that the Muses would speake with Plautus tongue, if they would speak Latin: so I say that the Muses would speak with Shakespeares fine filed phrase, if they would speake English.
RICHARD BARNFIELD Poems in Diver! Humors. 1598 ..
And Shakespeare thou, whose hony-flowing Vaine,
(Pleasing the World) thy Praises doth obtaine.
Whose Venus, and whose Lucrece (sweete, and chaste)
Thy Name in fames immortall Booke haue plac’t.
Liue euer you, at least in Fame liue euer:
Well may the Bodye dye, but Fame dies neuer.
JOHN WEEVER Epigrammes in the oldest Cut, and newest Fashion. 1599.
Honie-tong’d Shakespeare when I saw thine issue
I swore Apollo got them and none other,
Their rosie-tainted features cloth’d in tissue,
Some heauen born goddesse said to be their mother:
Rose-checkt Adonis with his amber tresses,
Faire fire-hot Venus charming him to loue her,
Chaste Lucretia virgine-like her dresses,
Prowd lust-stung Tar’luine seeking stilI to proue her:
Romea Richard;more whose names I know not,
Their sugred tongues, and power attractiue beuty
Say they are Saints althogh that Sts they shew not
For thousands vowes to them subiectiue dutie:
They burn in loue thy children Shakespear het them,
Go, wo thy Muse more Nymphish brood beget them.
ANON Parnassus, (A series of three plays performed at Cambridge, probably at Christmas 1598, 1599, 1601. a. from 2 Parnassus ; b. from 3.)
a. Gull. Not in a vaine veine (prettie, i’ faith!): make mee them in two or three divers vayns, in Chaucer’s, Gower’s and Spencer’s and Mr. Shakspeare’s. Marry, I thinke I shall entertaine those verses which run like these;
Even as the sunn with purple coloured face
Had tane his last leave on the weeping moarne, &c.
O sweet Mr. Shakspeare! I’le have his picture in my study at the courte. . . .
Let this duncified worlde esteem of Spencer and Chaucer, I’le worshipp sweet Mr. Shakspeare, and to honour him will lay his Venus and Adonis under my pillowe, as we reade of one … slept with Homer under his bed’s heade.
b. Kempe. Few of the vniuersity men pen plaies weIl, they smell too much of that writer Duid, and that writer Metamorphosis, and talke too much of Proserpine & Iuppiter. Why heres our feIlow Shakespeare puts them all downe, I and Ben Ionson too. O that Ben Ionson is a pestilent fellow, he, brought vp Horace giuing the Poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath giuen him a purge that made him beray his credit:
Burbage. Its a shrewd fellow indeed.
GABRIEL HARVEY Marginalia. 1601?
The younger sort takes much delight in Shakespeares Venus, & Adonis: but his Lucrece, & his tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke, hau it in them, to please the wiser sort.
ANTHONY SCOLOKER Epistle to Daiphantus. 1604.
It should be like the Neuer-too-well read Arcadia, where the Prose and Verse (Matter and Words) are like his Mistresses eyes, one still c lIin another and without Coriuall: or to come home to the vulgars Element, like Friendly Shakespeare’s Tragedies, where the Commedian rides, when the Tragedian stands on Tip-toe: Faith it should please all, like Prince Hamlet.
JOHN WEBSTER Epistle to The White Devil. 1612.
And lastly (without wrong last to be named), the right happy and copious industry of M. Shake-speare, M. Decker, & M. Heywood, wishing what I write may be read by their light: Protesting, that, in the strength of mine owne iudgement, I know them so worthy, that though I rest silent in my owne worke, yet to most of theirs I dare (without flattery) fix that of Martiall,
Non norunt; Haec monument» mori,
THOMAS FREEMAN Runne and a Great Cast. 1614-.
Shakespeare, that nimble Mercury thy braine,
Lulls many hundred Argus-eyes asleepe,
So fit, for all thou fashionest thy vaine,
At th’ horse-foote fountaine thou hast drunk full deepe,
Vertues or vices theame to thee all one is:
Who loues chaste life, there’s Lucrece for a Teacher:
Who list read lust there’s Venus and Adonis,
True modell of a most lasciuious leatcher.
Besides in plaies thy wit windes like Meander:
Whence needy new-composers borrow more
Than Terence doth from Plautus or Menander.
But to praise thee aright I want thy store:
Then let thine owne works thine owne worth upraise,
And help t’ adorne thee with deserued Baies.
WILLIAM BASSE C. 1620.
On Mr. Wm. Shakespeare
he dyed in Aprill 1616.
Renowned Spencer, lye a thought more nye
To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lye
A little neerer Spenser to make roome
For Shakespeare in your threefold fowerfold Tombe.
To lodge all fowre in one bed make a shift
Vntill Doomesdaye, for hardly will a fift
Betwixt this day and that by Fate be slayne
For whom your Curtaines may be drawn againe.
If your precedency in death doth barre
A fourth place in your sacred sepulcher,
Vnder this carued marble of thine owne
Sleepe rare Tragcedian Shakespeare, sleep alone,
Thy vnmolested peace, vnshared Caue,
Possesse as Lord not Tenant of thy Graue,
That vnto us and others it may be
Honor hereafter to be layde by thee.
BEN JONSON
a. From Conversations with William Drummond. 1618-19. (These are notes by Drummond on his talks with Jonson, who set out to see him at Hawthornden in the summer of 1618.)
b. Verses on the fifth preliminary leaf to F 1, 1623. Jonson is one of the ‘Friends and guides’ referred to by Heminge and Condell.
c. From Timber: or Discoveries. Probably written after 1630 when Jonson was ‘prest by extremities’, and struggling with want and disease ‘for breath’.
a.His Censure of the English Poets was this . . .
That Shaksperr wanted Arte.
b. To the memory of my beloued, The Avthor
Mr. William Shakespeare: And what he hath left vs.
To draw no enuy (Shakespeare) on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy Booke, and Fame:
While I confesse thy writings to be such,
As neither Man, nor Muse, can praise too much.
‘Tis true, and all mens suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant onto thy praise:
For seeliest Ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but echo’s right;
Or blinde Affection, which doth ne’re advance
The truth, but gropes, and vrgeth all by chance;
Or crafty Malice, might pretend this praise,
And thinke to ruine, where it seem’d to raise.
These are, as some infamous Baud, or Whore,
Should praise a Matron. What could hurt her more?
But thou art proofe against them, and indeed
Above th’ ill fortune of them, or the need.
I, therefore will begin. Soule of the Age!
The applause! delight! the wonder of our Stage!
My Shakespeare, rise; 1 will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lye
A little further, to make thee a roome:
Thou art a Moniment, without a tombe,
And art aliue still, while thy Booke doth liue,
And we haue wits to read, and praise to giue,
That I not mixe thee so, ny braine excuses;
I meane with great, but disproportion’d Muses:
For, if 1 thought my iudgement were of yeeres,
I should commit thee surely with thy peeres,
And tell, how farre thou didst our Lily out-shine,
Or sporting Kid, or Marlowes mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latine, and less Greeke,
From thence to honour thee, 1 would not seeke
For names,’ but call forth thund’ring £schilus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
Paccuuius, Accius, him of Cordoua dead,
To life againe, to heare thy Buskin tread,
And shake a Stage: Or, when thy Sockes were on,
Leaue thee alone, for the comparison
Of all, that insolent Greece, or haughtie Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britaine, thou hast one to showe,
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When like Apollo he came forth to warme
Our eares, or like a Mercury to charme!
Nature her seife was proud of his designes,
And ioy’d to weare the dressing of his lines!
Which were so richly spun, and taouen so fit,
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other Wit.
The merry Greeke, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
But antiquated, and deserted lye
As they were not of Natures family.
Yet must I not giue Nature all: Thy Art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enioy a part.
For though the Poets matter, Nature be,
His Art doth glue the fashion. And, that he,
Who casts to write a liuing line, must sweat,
(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses anuile: turne the same,
(And himselfe with it) that he thinkes to frame;
Or for the lawrell, he may gaine a scorne,
For a good Poet’s made, as well as borne.
And such wert thou. Looke how the fathers face
Liues in his issue, euen so, the race
Of Shakespeares minde, and manners brightly shine
In his well torned, and true-filed line:
In each of which, he seemes to shake a Lance,
As brandish’t at the eyes of Ignorance,
Sweet Swan of Auon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appeare,
And make those flights vpon the bankes of Thames,
That so did take Eliza and our lames!
But stay, I see thee in the Hemisphere
Aduanc’d, and made a Constellation there!
Shine forth, thou Starre of Poets, and with rage,
Or infiuence, chide, or cheer» the drooping Stage;
Which, since thy jlight from hence, hath mourn’d like night,
And despaires day, but for thy Volumes light.
c.
I remember, the Players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that .in his writing, (whatsoever he penn’d) hee never blotted out line. My answer hath beene, would he had blotted a thousand. Which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance, who choose that circumstance to commend their friend by, wherein he most faulted. And to justifie mine own candor, (for I lov’d the man, and doe honour his memory (on this side Idolatry) as much as any.) Hee was (indeed) honest, and of an open, and free nature: had an excellent Phantsie; brave notions, and gentle expressions: wherein hee f1ow’d with that facility, that sometime it was necessary he should be stop’d: Sufllaminandus erat : as Augustus said of Haterius, His wit was in his owne power; would the rule of it had beene so too. Many times hee fell into those things, could not escape laughter: As when hee said in the person of Cesar, one speaking to him: Ceesar thou dost me wrong, He replyed: Ceesar did never wrong, but with just cause and such like: which were ridiculous. But hee redeemed his vices with his vertues. There was ever more in him to be praysed, then to be pardoned.
JOHN HEMINGE AND HENRY CONDELL (The editors of the First Folio, 1623.)
To the great Variety of Readers
It had bene a thing, we confesse, worthie to haue been wished, that the Author himselfe had liu’d to haue set forth, and ouerseen his owne writings; But since it hath bin ordain’d otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envie his Friends, the office of their care, and paine, to haue collected & publish’d them; and so to haue publish’d them, as where (before) you were abus’d with diuerse stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of iniurious impostors that expos’d them: euen those, are now offer’d to your view cur’d, and perfect of their limbes , and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceiued them. Who, as he was a happie imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together: And what he thought, he vttered with that easinesse, that wee haue scarce receiued from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our prouince, who onely gather his works, and giue them you, to praise him. It is yours that reade him . .And there we hope, to your diuers capacities, you will finde enough, both to draw, and hold you: for his wit can no more lie hid, then it could be lost. Reade him, therefore; and againe, and againe: And if then you doe not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger, not to vnderstand him. And so we leaue you to other of his Friends, whom if you need, can bee your guides: if you neede them not, you can leade your selues, and others. And such Readers we wish him.
HUGH HOLLAND From sixth preliminary leaf to Fr, 1623.
Vpon the Lines and Life of the Famous
Scenicke Poet, Master William Shakespeare.
Those hands, which you so clapt, go now, and wring
You Britaines braue , for done are Shakespeares dayes:
His dayes are done, that made the dainty Playes,
Which made the Globe of heau’n and earth to ring.
Dry’de is that veine, dry’d is the Thespian Spring,
Turn’d all to teares, and Phcebus clouds his rayes:
That corp’s, that coffin now besticke those bayes,
Which crown’d him Poet first, then Poets King,”
If Tragedies might any Prologue haue,
All those he made, would scarse make one to this:
Where Fame, now that he gone is to the graue
(Deaths publique tyring-house) the Nuncias is.
For though his line of life went soone about,
The life yet of his lines shall neuer out.
LEONARD DIGGES From eighth preliminary leaf to Fr, r623.
To the Memorie of the deceased Author Maister W. Shakespeare.
Shake-speare, at length thy pious fellowes giue
The world thy Workes: thy Workes, by which, out-liue
Thy Tombe, thy name must: when that stone is rent,
And Time dissolues thy Stratford Moniment,
Here we aliue shall view thee still. This Booke,
When Brasse and Marble fade, shall make thee looke
Fresh to all Ages: when Posteritie
Shall loath what’s new, thinke all is prodegie
That is not Shake-speares; eu’ry Line, each Verse,
Here shall reuiue, redeeme thee from thy Herse.
Nor Fire, nor cankring Age, as Nasa said,
Of his, thy wit-fraught Booke shall once inuade.
Nor shall I e’re beleeue, or thinke thee dead
(Though mist) untill our bankrout Stage be sped
(Impossible) with some new strain t’ out-do
Passions of luliet, and her Romeo;
Or till I heare a Scene more nobly take,
Then when thy half-Sword parlying Romans spake,
Till these, till any of thy Volumes rest
Shall with more fire, more feeling be exprest,
Be sure, our Shake-speare, thou canst neuer dye,
But crown’d with Lawrell, liue eternally.
MICHAEL DRAYTON From Elegy to Henry Reynolds. 1627.
And be it said of thee,
Shakespeare, thou hadst as smooth a Comicke vaine,
Fitting the socke, and in thy naturall braine,
As strong conception, and as Cleere a rage,
As anyone that trafiqu’d with the stage.
JOHN MILTON Published in prefatory matter to the Second Folio, 1632.
(This was the first of Milton’s poems to be published.)
On Shakes pear, 1630.
What needs my Shakes pear for his honour’d Bones,
The labour of an age in piled Stones,
Or that his hallow’d reliques should be hid
Under a Star-ypointing Pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame,
What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.
For whilst toth’ shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from ‘the leaves of thy unvalu’d Book,
Those Delphick lines with deep impression took,
Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving,
Dost make us Marble with too much conceaving;
And so Sepulcher’d in such pomp dost lie,
That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die.
THOMAS HEYWOOD From The Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels. 1635.
Our moderne Poets to that passe are driuen,
Those names are curtal’d which they first had giuen;
And, as we wisht to haue their memories drown’d,
We scarcely can afford them halfe their sound ….
Mellifluous Shake-speare, whose inchanting Quill
Commanded Mirth or Passion, was but Will.
LEONARD DIGGES From John Benson’s edition of Shakespeare’s Poems, 1640.
Poets are borne not made, when I would prove
This truth, the glad rememberance I must love
Of never dying Shakespeare, who alone,
Is argument enough to make that one.
First, that he was a Poet none would doubt,
That heard th’applause of what he sees set out
Imprinted; where thou hast (I will not say)
Reader his Workes (for to contrive a Play
To him twas none) the patterne of all wit,
Art without Art unparaleld as yet.
Next Nature onely helpt him, for Iooke thorow
This whole Booke, thou shalt find he doth not borrow,
One phrase from Greekes, nor Latines imitate,
Nor once from vulgar Languages Translate,
Nor Plagiari-like from others gleane,
Nor begs he from each witty friend a Scene
To peece his Acts with, all that he doth write,
Is pure his owne, plot, language exquisite,
But oh! what praise more powerfull can we give
The dead, than that by him the Kings men live, ‘
His Players, which should they but have shar’d the Fate,
All else expir’d within the short Termes date;
How could the Globe have prospered, since through want
Of change, the Plaies and Poems had growne scant.
But happy Verse thou shalt be sung and heard,
When hungry quills shall be such honour bard.
Then vanish upstart Writers to each Stage,
You needy Poetasters of this Age”
Where Shakespeare liv’d or spake, Vermine forbeare,
Least with your froth you spot them, come not neere;
But if you needs must write, if poverty
So pinch, that otherwise you starve and die,
On Gods name may the Bull or Cockpit have
Your lame blancke Verse, to keepe you from the grave:
Or let new Fortunes younger brethren see,
What they can picke from your leane industry.
I doe not wonder when you offer at
Blacke-Friers, that you suffer: tis the fate
Of richer veines, prime judgments that have far’d
The worse, with this deceased man compar’d.
So have I seene, when Cesar would appeare,
And on the Stage at halfe-sword parley were,
Brutus and Cassius: oh how the Audience,
Were ravish’d, with what wonder they went thence,
When some new day they would not brooke a line,
Of tedious (though well laboured) Catiline;
Sejanus too was irkesome, they priz’de more
Honest Iago, or the jealous Moore.
And though the Fox and subtill Alchimist,
Long intermitted could not quite be mist,
Though these have sham’d all the Ancients, and might raise,
Their Authors merit with a crowne of Bayes.
Yet these sometimes, even at a friend’s desire
Acted, have scarce defraid the Seacoale fire
And doore-keepers: when let but Falstaffe come,
Hall, Poines, the rest you scarce shall have a roome
All is so pester’d: let but Beatrice
And Benedicke be seene, loe in a trice
The Cockpit Galleries, Boxes, all are full
To heare Maluoglio that crosse garter’d Gull. .
Briefe, there is nothing in his wit fraught Booke,
Whose sound we would not heare, on whose worth looke
Like old coynd gold, whose lines in every page,
Shall pass true currant to succeeding age.
But why doe I dead Sheakspeares praise recite,
Some second Shakespeare must of Shakespeare write;
For me tis needlesse, since an host of men,
Will pay to clap his praise, to free my Pen.
THOMAS FULLER From Worthies, Warwickshire. 1662.
(Fuller [1608-1661] began collecting materials for his Worthies, possibly as early as 1643.)
William Shakespeare was born at Stratford on Avon in this County, in whom three eminent Poets may seem in some sort to be compounded. I. Martial in the Warlike sound of his Sur-name (whence some may conjecture him of a Military extraction), Hasti-oibrans, or Shake-~peare.
2. Ovid, the most naturall and witty of all Poets, and hence It was that Queen Elizabeth, coming into a Grammar-School, made this extemporary verse,
‘Persius a Crab-staffs, Bawdy Martial,
Ovid a fine Wag.’
3· Plautus, who was an exact Comedian, yet never any Scholar, as our Shake-speare (if alive) would confess himself. Adde to all these, that though his genius generally was jocular, and inclining him to festivity, yet he could (when so disposed) be solemn and serious, as appears by his Tragedies, so that Heraclitus himself (I mean if secret and unseen) might afford to smile at his Comedies, they were so merry, and Democritus scarce forbear to sigh at his Tragedies they were so mournfull.
He was an eminent instance of the truth of that Rule, Poeta non fit, sednascitur, one is not made, but born a Poet. Indeed his Learning was very little, so that as Cornish diamonds are not polished by any Lapidary, but are pointed and smoothed even as they are taken out of the Earth, so nature it self was all the art which was used upon him.
Many were the wit-combates betwixt him and Ben Johnson, which two I behold like a Spanish great Gallion and an English man of War; Master Johnson (like the former) was built far higher in Learning; Solid, but Slow in his performances. Shake-spear, with the English-man of War, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his Wit and Invention.
MARGARET CAVENDISH, Duchess of Newcastle Letter. CXXIII, 1664. MADAM,
I Wonder how that Person you mention in your Letter, could either have the Conscience, or Confidence to Dispraise Shakespear’s Playes, as to say they were made up onely with Clowns, Fools, Watchmen, and the like; . . .
Shakespear did not want Wit, to Express to the Life all Sorts of Persons, of what Quality, Profession, Degree, Breeding, or Birth soever; nor did he want Wit to Express the Divers, and Different Humours; or Natures, or Several Passions in Mankind; and so Well he hath Express’d in his Playes all Sorts of Persons, as one would think he had been Transformed into every one of those Persons he hath Described; and as sometimes one would think he was really himself the Clown or Jester he Feigns, so one would think, he was also the King, and l(ivy Counsellor: also as one would think he were Really the Coward he Feigns, so one would think he were the most Valiant, and Experienced Souldier; Who would’ not think he had been such a man as his Sir John Falstaff? and who would not think he, had been Harry the Fifth? & certainly Julius Cesar, Augustus Ceesar, and Antonius, did never Really Act their parts Better, if so Well, as he hath Described them, and I believe that Antonius and Brutus did not Speak Better to the People, than he hath Feign’d them; nay, one would think that he had been Metamorphosed from a Man to .a Woman, for who could Describe Cleopatra Better than he hath done, and many other Females of his own Creating, as Nan Page, Mrs. Page, Mrs. Ford, the Doctors Maid, Bettrice, Mrs. Quickly, Doll Tearsheet, and others, too many to Relate? and in his Tragick Vein, he Presents Passions so Naturally, and Misfortunes so Probably; as he Peirces the Souls of his Readers with such a true Sense and Feeling thereof, that it Forces Tears through their Eyes, and almost Perswades them, they are Really Actors, or at least Present at those Tragedies. Who would not Swear he had been a Noble Lover, that could Woo so well? and there is not any person he hath Described in his Book, but his Readers might think they were Well acquainted with them; indeed Shakespear had a Clear Judgment, a Quick Wit, a Spreading Fancy, a Subtil Observation, a Deep Apprehension, and a most Eloquent Elocution; truly, he was a Natural Orator,as well as a Natural Poet, and he was not an Orator to Speak Well only on some Subjects, as Lawyers, who can make Eloquent Orations at the Bar, and Plead Subtilly and Wittily in Law-Cases, or Divines, that can Preach Eloquent Sermons, or Dispute Subtilly and Wittily in Theology, but take them from that, and put them to other Subjects, and they will be to seek; but Shakespear’s Wit and Eloquence was General, for, and upon all Subjects, he rather wanted Subjects for his Wit and Eloquence to Work on, for which he was Forced to take some of his Plots out of History, where he only took the Bare Designs, the Wit and Language being all his Own; and so much he had above others, that those, who Writ after him, were Forced to Borrow of him, or rather to Steal from him.
DRYDEN a. An Essay of Dramatick: Poesie, 1668. b. Essay on the Dramatique Poetry of the Last Age, 1672. c. Preface to Troilus and Cressida, or Truth found too late, 1679.
a. To begin, then, with Shakespeare. He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them, not laboriously, but luckily; when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some occasion is presented to him; no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets,
Quantum lenta soient inter viburna cupressi,
The consideration of this made Mr. Hales of Eaton say, that there was no subject of which any poet ever writ, but he would produce it much better treated of in Shakespeare; and however others are now generally preferred before him, yet the age wherein he lived, which had contemporaries with him Fletcher and Jonson, never equalled them to him in their esteem: and in the last King’s court, when Ben’s reputation was at highest, Sir John Suckling, and with him the greater part of the courtiers, set our Shakespeare far above him ….
If I would compare Jonson with Shakespeare, I must acknowledge him the more correct poet, but Shakespeare the greater wit. Shakespeare was the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets; Jonson was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing; I admire him, but I love Shakespeare.
b. But, malice and partiality set apart, let any man, who understands English, read diligently the works of Shakespeare and Fletcher, and I dare undertake, that he. will find in every page either some solecism of speech, or some notorious flaw in sense; and yet these men are reverenced, when we are not forgiven. That their wit is great, and many times their expressions noble, envy itself cannot deny. But the times were ignorant in which they lived. Poetry was then, if not in its infancy among us, at least not arrived to its vigour and maturity: witness the lameness of their plots; many of which, especially those which they writ first (for even that age refined itself in some measure), were made up of some ridiculous incoherent story, which in one play many times took up the business of an age. I suppose I need not name Pericles, Prince oj Tyre, nor the historical plays of Shakespeare: besides many of the rest, as the Winter’s Tale, Love’s Labour Lost, Measure for Measure, which were either grounded on impossibilities, or at least so meanly written, that the comedy neither caused your mirth, nor the serious part your con-cernment ….
Shakespeare, who many times has written better than any poet, in any language, is yet so far from writing wit always, or expressing that wit according to the dignity of the subject, that he writes, in many places, below the dullest writer of ours, or any precedent age. Never did any author precipitate himself from such height of thought to so low expressions, as he often does. He is the very Janus of poets; he wears almost everywhere two faces; and you have scarce begun to admire the one, ere you despise the other.
c. If Shakespeare be allowed, as I think he must, to have made his characters distinct, it will easily be inferred that he understood the nature of the passions: because it has been proved already that confused passions make undistinguishable characters: yet I cannot deny that he’ has his failings; but they are not so much in the passions themselves, as in his manner of expression: he often obscures his meaning by his words, and sometimes makes it unintelligible. I will not say of so great a poet, that he distinguished not the blown puffy style from true sublimity; but I may venture to maintain, that the fury of his fancy often transported him beyond the bounds of judgment, either in coining of new words and phrases, or racking words which were in use, into the violence of a catachresis. It is not that I would explode the use of metaphors from passions, for Longinus thinks ‘em necessary to raise it: but to use ‘em at every word, to say nothing without a metaphor, a simile, an image, or description, is, I doubt, to smell a little too strongly of the buskin. I must be forced to give an example of expressing passion figuratively; but that I may do it with respect to Shakespeare, it shall not be taken from anything of his: ’tis an exclamation against Fortune, quoted in his Hamlet but written by some other poet2—
Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! all you gods,
In general synod, take away her power; Break all the spokes and felleys from her wheel,
And bowl the round nave down the hill of Heav’n,
As low as’ to the fiends.
And immediately after, speaking of Hecuba, when Priam was killed before her eyes–
The mobbled queen
Threatening the flame, ran up and down
With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head
Where late the diadem stood; and for a robe,
About her lank and all o’er-teemeds loins,
A blanket in th’al~m of fear caught up.
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep’d
Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounced.
But if the gods themselves did see her then,
When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs,
The instant burst of damour that she made
(Unless things mortal move them not at all)
Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
And passion in the gods.
What a pudder is here kept in raising the expression of trifling thoughts! Would not a man have thought that the poet had been bound prentice to a wheelwright, for his first rant? and had followed a ragman, for the clout and blanket in the second? Fortune is painted on a wheel, and therefore the writer, in a rage, will have poetical justice done upon every member of that engine: after this execution, he bowls the nave down-hill, from Heaven, to the fiends (an unreasonable long mark, a man would think); ’tis well there are no solid orbs to stop it in the way, or no element of fire to consume it: but when it came to the earth, it must be monstrous heavy, to break ground as, low as the centre. His making milch the burning eyes of heaven was a pretty tolerable flight too: and I think no man ever drew milk out of eyes before him: yet, to make the wonder greater, these eyes were burning. Such a sight indeed were enough to have raised passion in the gods; but to excuse the effects of it, he tells you, perhaps they did not see it. Wise men would be gladto find a little sense couched under all these pompous words; for bombast is commonly the delight of that audience which loves Poetry, but understands it not; and .as commonly has been the practice of those writers, who, not being able to infuse a natural passion into the mind, have made it their business to ply the ears, and to stun their judges by the noise.
But Shakespeare does not often thus; for the passions in his scene between Brutus and Cassius are extremely natural, the thoughtsare such as arise from the matter, the expression of ‘ern not viciously figurative. I cannot leave this subject, before I do justice to that divine poet, by giving you one of his passionate descriptions: ’tis of Richard the Second when he was deposed, and led in triumph through the streets of London by Henry of Bullingbrook: the painting of it is so lively, and the words so moving, that I have scarce read anything comparable to it ‘in any other language. Suppose you have seen already the fortunate usurper passing through the crowd, and followed by the shouts and acclamations of the people; and now behold King Richard entering upon the scene: consider the wretchedness of his condition, and his carriage in it; and refrain from pity if you can-
As in a theatre, the eyes of men,
After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious:
Even so, or with much more contempt, men’s eyes
Did scowl on Richard: no man cried, God save him:
No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home.
But dust was thrown upon his sacred head,
Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,
His face still combating with tears and smiles
(The badges of his grief and patience),
That had not God (for some strong purpose) steel’d
The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,
And barbarism itself have pitied him.
To speak justly of this whole matter: ’tis neither height of thought that is discommended, nor pathetic vehemence, nor any nobleness of expression in its proper place; but ’tis a false measure of all these, something which is like them; ’tis the Bristol-stone, which appears like a diamond, ’tis an extravagant thought, instead of a su blime one; ’tis roaring madness, instead of vehemence; and a sound of words instead of sense. If Shakespeare were stripped of all the bombasts in his passions, and dressed in the most vulgar words, we should find the beauties of his thoughts remaining, if his embroideries were burnt down, there would still be silver at the bottom of the melting-pot: but I fear (at least let me fear it for myself) that we, who ape his sounding words, have nothing of his thought, but are all outside; there is not so much as a dwarf within our giant’s clothes. Therefore, let not Shakespeare suffer for our sakes; ’tis our fault, who succeed him in an age which is more refined, if we imitate him so ill, that we copy his failings only, and make a virtue of that in our writings which in him was an imperfection.
For what remains, the excellency of that poet was, as I have said, in the more manly passions; Fletcher’s in the softer: Shakespeare writ better betwixt man and man; Fletcher betwixt man and woman: consequently, the one described friendship better; the other love: yet Shakespeare taught Fletcher to write love: and Juliet and Desdemona are originals. ‘Tis true, the scholar had the softer soul; but the master had the kinder. Friendship is both a virtue and a passion essentially; love is a passion only in its nature, and is not a virtue but by accident: good nature makes friendship’; but effeminacy love. Shakespeare had an universal mind, which comprehended all characters and passions; Fletcher a more confined and limited: for though he treated love in perfection, yet honour, ambition, revenge, and generally all the stronger passions, he either touched not, or not masterly. To conclude all, he was a limb of Shakespeare.
EDWARD PHILLIPS Theatrum Poetarum, 1675. (Phillips was Milton’s nephew.)
Shakespear,in s pite of all his unfiled expressions, his rambling and in digested Fancys, the laughter of the Critical, yet must be confess’t a Poet above many that go beyond him in Literature some degrees …. William Shakespear, the Glory of the English Stage; whose nativity at Stratford upon Avon, is the highest honour that Town can boast of: from an Actor of Tragedies and Comedies, he became a Maker; and such a Maker, that though some others may perhaps pretend to a more exact Decorum and eeconomie, especially in Tragedy, never any express’t a more lofty and Tragic heighth; never any represented nature more purely to the life, and where the polishments of Art are most ‘wanting, as probably his Learning was not extraordinary, he plea seth with a certain wild and native Elegance; and in all his Writings hath an unvulgar style, as well in his Yenus and Adonis, his Rape of Lucrece and other various Poems, as in his Dramatics.
THOMAS RYMER A Short Fieeo of Tragedy. 1693.
What Reformation may not we expect now, that in France they see the necessity of a Chorus to their Tragedies? Boyer, and Racine, both of the Royal Academy, have led the Dance; they have tried the success in the last Plays that were Presented by them.
The Chorus was the root and original, and is certainly always the most necessary part of Tragedy.
The Spectators thereby are secured, that their Poet shall not juggle, or put upon them in the matter of Place, and Time, other than is just and reasonable for the representation. .
And the Poet has this benefit; the Chorus is a goodly Show, so that he need not ramble from his Subject out of his Wits for some foreign Toy or Hobby-horse, to humor the multitude ….
Gorboduck is a fable, doubtless, better turn’d for Tragedy, than any on this side the Alps in his time; and might have been a better direction to Shakespear and Ben. Johnson than any guide they have had the luck to follow.
It is objected by our Neighbours against the English, that we delight in bloody spectacles. Our Poets who have not imitated Gorboduck in the regularity and roundness of the design, have not failed on the Theatre to give us the atrocite and blood enough in all Conscience. From this time Dramatick Poetry began to thrive with us, and flourish wonderfully. The French confess they had nothing in this kind considerable till 1635, that the Academy Royal was founded. Long before which time we had from Shakespear, Fletcher, and Ben. Johnson whole Volumes; at this day in possession of the Stage, and acted with greater applause than ever. Yet after all, I fear what Quintilian pronounced concerning the Roman Comedy, may as justly be said of English Tragedy: . In Tragedy we come short extreamly; hardly have we a slender shadow of it ….
Shakespears genius lay for Comedy and Humour. In Tragedy he appears quite out of his Element; his Brains are turn’d, he raves and rambles, without any coherence, any spark of reason, or any rule to controul him, or set bounds to his phrenzy. His imagination was still running after his Masters, the Coblers, and Parish Clerks, and Old Testament Stroulers, So he might make bold with Portia, as they had done with the Virgin Mary. Who, in a Church Acting their Play call’d The Incarnation, had usually the Ave Mary mumbl’d over to a stradling wench (for the blessed Virgin) straw-hatted, blew-apron’d, big-bellied, with her immaculate Conception up to her chin.
NICHOLAS ROWE Preface to his edition of Shakespeare. 1709.
His plays are properly to be distinguished only into Comedies and Tragedies. Those which are called Histories, and even some of his Comedies, are really Tragedies, with a run or Mixture of Comedy amongst ‘em. The way of Tragi-Comedy was the common mistake of that age, and is indeed become so agreeable to the English taste, that tho’ the severer critics among us cannot bear it, yet the generality of our audiences seem to be better pleased with it than with an exact Tragedy ….
The style of his Comedy is, in general, natural to the characters, and easy in itself; and the wit most commonly sprightly and pleasing, except in those places where he runs into dog rel rhymes, as in the Comedy of Errors, and a passage or two in some other plays. As for his jingling sometimes, and playing upon words, it was the common vice of the age he lived in: and if we find it in the pulpit, perhaps it may not be thought too light for the stage.
But certainly the greatness of this author’s Genius does no where so much appear, as where he gives his imagination an entire loose, and raises his fancy to a flight above mankind and the limits of the visible world. Such are his attempts in The Tempest, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth and Hamlet .…
If one undertook to examine the greatest part of these (the Tragedies) by those rules which are established by Aristotle, and taken from the model of the Grecian stage, it would be no very hard task to, find a great many faults: but as Shakespeare lived under a kind of mere Light of Nature, and had never been made acquainted with the regularity of those written precepts, so it would be hard to judge him by a law he knew nothing of. We are to consider him as a man that lived in a state of almost universal license and ignorance: there was no established judge, but everyone took the liberty to write according to the dictates of his own fancy. When one considers, that there is not one play before him of a reputation good enough to entitle it to an appearance on the present stage, it cannot but be a matter of great wonder that he should advance dramatic poetry as far as he did.
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