As among the first to draw the attention of the public to these almost forgotten treasures, we hold it our duty, before we proceed farther, to express ourselves clearly and fully on the subject of these revivals. A full feeling of their excellence does not necessarily suppose an acknowledgement of their general fitness for modern representation: on the contrary, it is our decided opinion, and we feel assured that those most intimate with the dramatic productions of the reign of Elizabeth and James the First, will agree with us, that the success, or failure, of their com mendable attempt, will altogether depend on the discrimination used in the selection. There is a distinction, which every man that thinks deeply will feel forcibly, between the ages in which they were produced and our own: the first may properly be termed the poetical age of this country: and it will not be the less just to call our own the critical, because Swift has.said, that every man may assert as much of the age in which he lives. We are incapable of giving up our imaginations to the poet as our ancestors were accustomed we cannot, as Shakespeare recommends, "Piece out their imperfections with our thoughts," Hor jump o'er times; Turning the accomplishment of many years Into an hour-glass!" We are not now gratified unless our severer sense feels assured it ought to be but if the eye beamed and the heart danced with our ancestors, they neither knew, nor cared to know, if the occasion justified it; and for this absence of all critical sensibility they were well repaid, in an intenseness of feeling and fullness of defight, of which we absolutely know nothing. It is impossible, however, to recal this feeling, or to engraft it on our own: "as the old man doth not become a child by means of his second childishness, as little can a nation exempt itself from the necessity of thinking, which has once learnt to think." Hence it has arisen, that even the acknowledged excellence of Shakespeare must be subjected to castration and interpolation, to fit it for representation; and hence it should follow that such plays, and such plays only, as can be adapted with, comparatively, trifling alteration, should be selected: for it cannot surely be expected, that with but a common reverence for these great works, we would consent to see them shamelessly and barbarously muti-lated: if it be found necessary, in adapting this or that drama for the stage, to strip it of all that is beautiful: to dissect and separate, and tear from it all that is congenial to the spirit: if it must must be deprived of vitality, it is worse than wantonness to expose the lifeless and worthless trunk of the four and twenty plays in the collection now before us; for example, not more than two or three could be revived, and indeed only one we should venture to recommend for that purpose. The present, and we regret to add, the last, portion of this work, contains, May Day, The Spanish Gipsy, The Change ling, More Dissemblers besides Women, Women beware Women, A Trick to Catch the Old One, A New Wonder, a Woman Never Vext, Appius and Virginia, The Thracian Wonder, The English Traveller, The Royal King and Loyal Subject, and the Challenge for Beauty: this is, as a whole, we think, superior to the selection in the preceding volumes. If it contains nothing equal to Old Fortunatus, in which indeed the poet seems to have indulged in all the sportiveness of the most brilliant fancy, and to have poured out, without measure, the richness of his most poetical imagination; if it contains nothing equal to this, it is fortunately exempt from even a single scene that is not superior to the best in the whole three plays of the wretched Lilly. Of Chapman we expressed our opinion when this work was before under review; and May Day is not, we believe, very likely to shake the reader's faith in it. There is, however, some ingenuity, both in the plot and the manner of conducting it; and the interest is, throughout, well kept up. Quinteleano too is a sufficiently well-drawn character, with a good deal of Ben Jonson's peculiar humour: indeed, there are parts so strikingly similar, that we believe it would not be difficult to point out the original. With some judicious alterations, perhaps, this play would now succeed: there is a great deal of that bustle and intrigue that now passes current: and this is all we can say in commendation of it; for it has very few of the fine distinguishing features of the old school. There is one peculiarity in the two next plays in this collection, common, but confined we believe, to the old schools, of painting and the drama; it is the joint production of Middleton and Rowley*. "There is something amiable," says a writer of great promise, in the partnership productions of these authors: they freely joined their abilities, and contributed to one work boldly and unsparingly: no petty cavils occurred to injure their labours. It does not appear that a selfish avarice for solitary praise was common The Spanish theatre abounds with examples of this nature among the writers of the seventeenth century: but they have usually prefixed their names to their respective portions, with with them. We have no example in later times of these friendly conjunctions of genius. A fondness for individuality has long been popular, and mankind in literature, as in life, seems to have ceased to be social." But this is a pleasing rather than a correct picture. There can be little doubt that different individuals have been influenced by very different and opposite feelings. In the association. of Beaumont and Fletcher, men above the influence of necessity, we can see nothing but a congeniality of taste and study, a pure and disinterested friendship: but the connection of Massinger, and Field, and Decker and Rowley, &c. &c. was widely dif ferent: their friendship was probably the bond of affliction, their fellowship in misfortune: their means and their wants were common, and they associated their labour to gain the sooner its miserable reward. Middleton was a writer altogether superior to his coadjutor. "The Witch," is most probably known to the reader. For the almost supernatural agency in Macbeth, one of the highest evidences of the boundless range of Shakespeare's mighty mind, he was beyond question in some degree indebted to that play. A gross and palpable imitation it were folly to expect: and all that can be inferred from the comparison is, that the immortal poet took the rude material from the work of his contemporary, which he afterwards wrought up and moulded to his own brilliant conception. This may be asserted without attempting to depreciate from the original powers of this great man: the witches of Shakespeare are widely different from the witches of Middleton: neither let us detract from the excellence of the latter; if the witches of Middleton are less awful, if their power over the mind is less absolute, if their incantations have less of that solemn and mysterious working that cast a fearful influence over the mind, still he has succeeded, and succeeded greatly, where all but Shakespeare have failed. There are few things finer than what Sir William Davenant introduced, without acknowledgement, into the fifth scene of the third act of Macbeth, and which is still retained: the opening too of the third act has great beauty, and as the play is scarce we will venture to extract it. "Enter HECCAT, WITCHES, &c. "Hec. The moone's a gallant; see how brisk she rides. "Stad. Heer's a rich evening, Heccat. "Hec. I, is't not wenches To take a journey of five thousand mile. Heard you the owle yet? "Stad. "Stad. Breifely in the copps, As we came through now. "Hec. 'Tis high time for us then. "Stad. There was a bat hoong at my lipps three times. As we came through the woods, and drank her fill. Old Puckle saw her. "Hec. You are fortunate still. The very schreich-owle lights upon your shoulder, These mysterious and unearthly appetites and desires it must be allowed have a strong hold on the imagination. merit. Middleton's plays in the present selection are of very unequal "A Trick to Catch the Old One," although not deficient in interest, derives much additional interest from a circumstance noticed by the Editor, that it assuredly furnished Massinger with the character of Sir Giles Overreach. That Sir Giles Moupressan sat for the portrait, as asserted by Mr. Gilchrist, is not impossible; but the similarity between it and Lucre, conrected as they are with the other characters, can scarcely have been accidental. There is a curious marginal note in Sir Henry Herbert's Office, relating to " More Dissemblers besides Women," which we shall introduce here for the benefit of the Editor;-" The worst play that ere I saw ;" and truly, bating us the first act and an occasional passage, we are not much inclined to differ with him. The profligate young hypocrite, Lactantio, is very finely introduced. "Enter LACTANTIO, with a book. "Cardinal. What, at thy meditation? half in heaven? "Lact. The better half, my Lord, my mind's there still: And when the heart's above, the body walks here But like an idle serving-man below, Gaping and waiting for his master's coming. Card. What man in age could bring forth graver thoughts. I wonder at the young men of our days, 5 There There is no cure set down for 't; no physician The sight would less afflict me; but for modesty, This is absolutely all the play contains worth the reader's notice it is in every way unworthy its author. But for this and a thousand indifferent and hasty performances, Middleton has nobly compensated in the single play of "Women beware Women." With the exception of Ford's ""Tis Pity she's a Whore," we know of no opening scene in the language superior to the one in this play. It lets us at once into the character of Leantio, which is one drawn to the life. In him love is indeed an amiable madness; it absorbs all feeling and all passion; he scarcely treads the world though he is on it; he breathes something etherial: this is finely contrasted with the delicate and retsring affection of Biancha: and the enthusiastic disregard of the world and worldly objects in both, by the cautious, calculating, and honest homeliness of the mother. To extract a part would give the reader no idea of its merit, and the whole would far exceed our limits. Of Middleton's general manner, however, we have a good example in the third scene, where Leantio† enters as about to proceed to his daily avocation. "Lean. Methinks I'm e'en as dull now at departure, As men observe great gallants the next day After a revel: you shall see 'em look, Something like this is found in "The Woman's Prize," of Beaumont and Fletcher. I tell thee, there is nothing Under the sun (reckon the mass of follies So mad, so senseless, poor and base, so wretched, + Leantio is described in the Dram. Per. as "A Factor," the word was then used in a more limited sense than at present, and meant merely a clerk or servant to a merchant. N "Much VOL. VI. AUGUST, 1816. |