poetry and passion can do to confer dignity upon subjects which do not seem capable of it. But Aspatia must not be compared at all points with Helena; she does not so absolutely predominate over her situation but she suffers some diminution, some abatement of the full lustre of the female character, which Helena never does: her character has many degrees of sweetness, some of delicacy, but it has weakness which if we do not despise, we are sorry for. I have always considered Ordella, in the Thierry and Theodoret of Fletcher, the most perfect idea of the female heroic character, next to Calantha in the Broken Heart of Ford," that has been embodied in fiction. She is a piece of sainted nature. Yet, noble as the whole scene is, it must be confessed that the manner of it, compared with Shakspeare's finest scenes, is slow and languid. Its motion is circular, not progressive. Each line revolves on itself in a sort of separate orbit. They do not join into one another like a running hand. Every step that we go, we are stopped to admire some single object, like walking in beautiful scenery with a guide. This slowness I shall elsewhere have occasion to remark as characteristic of Fletcher. Another P Of this dramatist Mr. Lamb, in a note to a scene from his Broken Heart, has justly said that "he was of the first order of poets. He sought for sublimity not by parcels in metaphors or visible images, but directly where she has her full residence in the heart of man; in the actions and sufferings of the greatest minds." striking difference perceivable between Fletcher and Shakspeare, is the fondness of the former for unnatural and violent situations. He seems to have thought that nothing great could be produced in an ordinary way. The chief incidents in The Wife for a Month, in Cupid's Revenge, in The Double Marriage, and in many more of his tragedies, show this. Shakspeare had nothing of this contortion in his mind, none of that craving after romantic incidents, and flights of strained and improbable virtue, which I think always betrays an imperfect moral sensibility. There are some scenes in The Two Noble Kinsmen of Fletcher which give strong countenance to the tradition that Shakspeare had a hand in this play. They have a luxuriance in them which strongly resembles Shakspeare's manner in those parts of his plays where, the progress of the interest being subordinate, the poet was at leisure for description. I might fetch instances from Troilus and Timon. That Fletcher should have copied Shakspeare's manner through so many entire scenes, (which is the theory of Mr. Steevens,) is not very probable; that he could have done it with such facility is to me not certain. His ideas (as I have before remarked') moved slow; his versifica It was ascribed, in the title-page, to Fletcher and Shakspeare in 1634, only sixteen years after the death of the latter. Fletcher was nearly contemporary with Shakspeare. He was born twelve years later (in 1576), and died nine years after him (in 1625). tion, though sweet, is tedious; it stops every moment; he lays line upon line, making up one after the other, adding image to image so deliberately that we see where they join: Shakspeare mingles every thing; he runs line into line, embarrasses sentences and metaphors; before one idea has burst its shell, another is hatched and clamorous for disclosure. If Fletcher wrote some scenes in imitation, why did he stop? or shall we say that Shakspeare wrote the other scenes in imitation of Fletcher? that he gave Shakspeare a curb and a bridle, and that Shakspeare gave him a pair of spurs; as Blackmore and Lucan are brought in exchanging gifts in the Battle of the Books. The wit of Fletcher is excellent, like his serious scenes; but there is something strained and farfetched in both. He is too mistrustful of Nature; he always goes a little on one side of her. Shakspeare chose her without a reserve, and had riches, power, understanding, and long life, with her, for a dowry. CHARLES LAMB.' The comparisons which form this number are taken from a volume entitled "Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, who lived about the Time of Shakspeare," published by Mr. Charles Lamb, in the year 1808. They are included in the notes accompanying these specimens, and are, in my opinion, though miniatures, remarkable for their justness of comparative delineation, and their uncommon beauty and felicity of language. They are, in fact, gems of the purest water. |