SHAKKSPKAKK 



the south possessed by one all-absorbing emotion. 

 It is strange that Shakespeare did not follow ni> 

 ihis early tragedy by any play of a like km. I 

 .r to it in the chronological order probably 

 stands the exquisite comedy of The Merrhnnt 

 of Venice (e. 1596), which occupies a middle 

 place between the group of Shakespeare's earliest 

 comedies and those which lie around the year 1600. 

 The story of the caskets and the story of the pound 

 of flesh had probably been brought together in an 

 old play now lost which is mentioned by Stephen 

 (osson in 1579; but a play of that date can nave 

 afforded only rude material on which to work. The 

 advance in characterisation from that of Shake- 

 speare's previous comedies is remarkable ; no earlier 

 heroine is comparable with Portia, and the gracious 

 brightness of her figure is admirably enforced by 

 its contrast with the dark colours in which the 

 Jew is painted. Something was doubtless derived 

 from Marlowe's Jew of Malta, Barabas ; but Shy- 

 lock, with all his passion of revenge, is human ; 

 Barabas is an incredible monster of vices. Shake- 

 speare's mastery of coinedv aids him in the histor- 

 ical plays which followed the First and Second 

 Parti of King Henry IV. (1597-98) and King 

 Henry V. (1599). In these dramas the fortunes of 

 the House of Lancaster are followed to their glori- 

 ous culmination. The turbulent years from the 

 battle of Homildon Hill (1402) to the death of the 

 usurping Bolingbroke (1413) supply the material 

 for the historical portion of both parts of Henry IV. 

 But interwoven with the history is that inimitable 

 comedy of which FalstaiV is hero. In the epilogue 

 to the second part a promise is given that Falstaff 

 shall again appear in another play in which the 

 author will continue the story and make the specta- 

 tors ' merry with fair Katherine of France.' Shake 

 npeare found it impossible to fulfil that promise. 

 In the heroic drama of King Henry V. there is no 

 place for the fat knight. The play is inspired by 

 the ardent patriotism, the lofty national enthusi- 

 asm of the age of Elizabeth. In the person of the 

 king Shakespeare presents his ideal of a noble ruler 

 of men. The material for Henry I V. and Henry V. 

 was derived partly from Holinshed, partly from an 

 old play entitled The Famous Victories of Henry V. 

 Thus, as it were, with a trumpet-note of patnotic 

 pride and battle-ardour Shakespeare's historical 

 plays of England are brought to a close. 



There is a tradition dating from 1702 that Queen 

 Elizabeth commanded Shakespeare to exhibit Fal- 

 staff in love, and that in obedience he hastily wrote 

 -in fourteen days it is said The Merry Wives 

 of Windsor (1598-99). The comedy is of special 

 interest as a picture of middle-class English life, 

 and may be well studied in comparison with 

 tlonsoifx Krf-ru Man in his Humour; but the 

 fatuous Falstan of the Merry Wives is far different 

 from the ever-detected yet never-defeated Falstaff 

 of the historical plays. The comedy is written 

 almost wholly in prose, and in ita incidents 

 approaches farce. It may he that it was about this 

 time that Shakespeare adapted and enlarged the 

 old play, The T'linimj nf ,i Slirnr. or |M>rhaps 

 adapted and enlarged a previous adaptation of that 

 play by another hand. In The. Taming of the 

 Shrew (1597?) Shakespeare's genius shows itself 

 chiefly in connection with the boisterous heroine, 

 her high-spirited tamer Petruehio, and the drunken 

 tinker of the Induction. Conjectural attempts 

 have been made to distinguish the scenes and lines 

 which may be ascribed to Shakespeare ; but these 

 must be accepted with reserve. The same animal 

 spirits and intellectual vivacity which characterise 

 the Merry Wives and the Shrew appear tint now 

 retined and exalted in Mnrh Ailo about Nothing 

 (1598-99). The story of Claudio and Hero had 

 probably for its original a tale of Bandello trans- 



lated by Belleforest into French. The characters 

 of Beatrice and Benedick, it is Mipp<,-e<|. are en- 

 tirely original creations of the dramatist : there 

 i- in them something of his own Itosaline and 

 Berowne, and it was about this time that he re- 

 handled Love's Labour's Lost, the play in which we 

 make acquaintance with this earlier pair of lovers. 

 As You Like It (1599) and Twelfth Night (1600-1) 

 are the last of the wholly joyous comedies of 

 this period. In the former there is indeed a simu- 

 lacrum of melancholy in Jaques' affectation of 

 that mood as a fashion ; but of real gloom, of real 

 sorrow there is not a trace. This charming pas- 

 toral comedy is dramatised from a prose tale by 

 Shakespeare s contemporary Lodge, entitled Rota- 

 lynde, Euphues Golden Legacie (1590), which itself 

 follows the Tale of (lamelyn, erroneously intro- 

 duced as Chaucer's in some editions of the C,n,t,r 

 hurt/ Tales. In not a few scenes of Tu-rlfth .\'ight 

 the mirth is fast and high. Imt the central comic 

 figure, Malvolio, has something of dignity, almost 

 of majesty, in his extravagant and solemn self- 

 imjNirtance. Viola is perhaps the most charming 

 of Shakespeare's maiden masquer* in male attire ; 

 if she has not the intellectual brilliance of Kosa- 

 lintl. she has even more of maiden sweetness. The 

 plot resembles that of an Italian play til' Imiatnnili, 

 and it may also be found in a tale translated into 

 French by Belleforest from Bandello. But the 

 group of jesters and humorists with their victim 

 Malvolio are of Shakespeare's invention. 



About the year 1600-1 a change begins to 

 develop itself in the spirit of Shakespeareis writ- 

 ings ; his mirth becomes touched with seriousness 

 or infected with bitterness, and soon he ceases to 

 write comedy. Some students have supposed that 

 this transition from a jovous to a sadder temper is 

 connected with events which are shadowed forth in 

 Shakespeare's Sonnets. The volume of Sonnett was 

 not published until 1 609, but Shakespeare's 'sugred 

 Minuets among hi- private friends' were mentioned 

 by Francis Meres (who gives a very important list 

 of the poet's writings) in his Palladis Tain In 

 (1598), and in the following year the Sonnets after- 

 wards numbered 138 and 144 were printed in a 

 surreptitious miscellany of verse ascribed to Shake- 

 speare by the bookseller Jaggard , and entitled The 

 Passionate Pilgrim. The 1(509 edition of Sonnets 

 is dedicated by the publisher T. Thorpe to 'Mr 

 W. H.' as 'the onlie liegetter of these insuing 

 Sonnets.' The poems, 154 in number, form two 

 groups 1-126 adaressed to a beautiful young man 

 of high station, 127-154 either addressed to or 

 referring to a married woman not beautifij accord- 

 ing to the conventional standard, of dark com 

 plexion, highly accomplished, fascinating, but of 

 stained character and irregular conduct. The two 



groups ar mnected. Shakespeare's young friend 



and patron, whom he addresses in words of 

 measureless devotion, seems to have fallen into the 

 toils of the woman to whom Shakespeare was him- 

 self attached by a passion which he felt to be 

 degrading, yet which he could not overcome. The 

 woman yielded herself to the younger admirer who 

 was socially the superior of Shakespeare. Hence 

 an alienation between the friends, increased by the 

 fact that the youth was now the favourer of a rival 

 poet ; but in the close all wrongs were forgotten 

 and the friendship renewed on a tinner lia-i- 

 Sneh is tin; story to be read in the Sonnets, if we 

 take them, as they ought to be taken, in their 

 natural sense. But some critics have imagined 

 that they deal with ideal themes or mav set forth 

 a spiritual allegory. Many attempts have been 

 made to identify the persons of Mr W. H., the 

 dark woman, and the rival poet. The happiest 

 guess with respect to the last is that he wa.s 

 George Chapman. It has been conjectured thai 



