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Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books written by Charles W. Eliot

C >> Charles W. Eliot >> Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books




The objection arising from the impossibility of passing the first hour
at _Alexandria_, and the next at _Rome_, supposes, that when the play
opens, the spectator really imagines himself at _Alexandria_, and
believes that his walk to the theatre has been a voyage to _Egypt_,
and that he lives in the days of _Antony_ and _Cleopatra_. Surely he
that imagines this may imagine more. He that can take the stage at one
time for the palace of the _Ptolemies_, may take it in half an hour
for the promontory of _Actium_. Delusion, if delusion be admitted, has
no certain limitation; if the spectator can be once persuaded,
that his old acquaintance are _Alexander_ and _Caesar_, that a room
illuminated with candles is the plain of _Pharsalia_, or the bank of
_Granicus_, he is in a state of elevation above the reach of reason,
or of truth, and from the heights of empyrean poetry, may despise the
circumscriptions of terrestrial nature. There is no reason why a mind
thus wandering in extacy should count the clock, or why an hour should
not be a century in that calenture of the brains that can make the
stage a field.

The truth is, that the spectators are always in their senses, and
know, from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage,
and that the players are only players. They came to hear a certain
number of lines recited with just gesture and elegant modulation. The
lines relate to some action, and an action must he in some place;
but the different actions that complete a story may be in places very
remote from each other; and where is the absurdity of allowing that
space to represent first _Athens_, and then _Sicily_, which was always
known to be neither _Sicily_ nor _Athens_, but a modern theatre?

By supposition, as place is introduced, times may be extended; the
time required by the fable elapses for the most part between the acts;
for, of so much of the action as is represented, the real and poetical
duration is the same. If, in the first act, preparations for war
against _Mithridates_ are represented to be made in _Rome_, the event
of the war may, without absurdity, be represented, in the catastrophe,
as happening in _Pontus_; we know that there is neither war, nor
preparation for war; we know that we are neither in _Rome_ nor
_Pontus_; that neither _Mithridates_ nor _Lucullus_ are before us. The
drama exhibits successive imitations of successive actions; and why
may not the second imitation represent an action that happened years
after the first, if it be so connected with it, that nothing but time
can be supposed to intervene? Time is, of all modes of existence, most
obsequious to the imagination; a lapse of years is as easily conceived
as a passage of hours. In contemplation we easily contract the time of
real actions, and therefore willingly permit it to be contracted when
we only see their imitation.

It will be asked, how the drama moves, if it is not credited. It is
credited with all the credit due to a drama. It is credited, whenever
it moves, as a just picture of a real original; as representing to the
auditor what he would himself feel, if he were to do or suffer what
is there feigned to be suffered or to be done. The reflection that
strikes the heart is not, that the evils before us are real evils, but
that they are evils to which we ourselves may be exposed. If there be
any fallacy, it is not that we fancy the players, but that we fancy
ourselves unhappy for a moment; but we rather lament the possibility
than suppose the presence of misery, as a mother weeps over her babe,
when she remembers that death may take it from her. The delight of
tragedy proceeds from our consciousness of fiction; if we thought
murders and treasons real, they would please no more.

Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not because they are mistaken
for realities, but because they bring realities to mind. When the
imagination is recreated by a painted landscape, the trees are not
supposed capable to give us shade, or the fountains coolness; but we
consider, how we should be pleased with such fountains playing beside
us, and such woods waving over us. We are agitated in reading the
history of _Henry_ the Fifth, yet no man takes his book for the
field of _Agencourt_. A dramatick exhibition is a book recited with
concomitants that encrease or diminish its effect. Familiar comedy is
often more powerful in the theatre, than on the page; imperial
tragedy is always less. The humour of _Petruchio_ may be heightened
by grimace; but what voice or what gesture can hope to add dignity or
force to the soliloquy of _Cato_.

A play read, affects the mind like a play acted. It is therefore
evident, that the action is not supposed to be real; and it follows,
that between the acts a longer or shorter time may be allowed to pass,
and that no more account of space or duration is to be taken by the
auditor of a drama, than by the reader of a narrative, before whom may
pass in an hour the life of a hero, or the revolutions of an empire.

Whether _Shakespeare_ knew the unities, and rejected them by design,
or deviated from them by happy ignorance, it is, I think, impossible
to decide, and useless to enquire. We may reasonably suppose, that,
when he rose to notice, he did not want the counsels and admonitions
of scholars and criticks, and that he at last deliberately persisted
in a practice, which he might have begun by chance. As nothing is
essential to the fable, but unity of action, and as the unities
of time and place arise evidently from false assumptions, and, by
circumscribing the extent of the drama, lessen its variety, I cannot
think it much to be lamented, that they were not known by him, or
not observed: Nor, if such another poet could arise, should I very
vehemently reproach him, that his first act passed at _Venice_, and
his next in _Cyprus_. Such violations of rules merely positive, become
the comprehensive genius of _Shakespeare_, and such censures are
suitable to the minute and slender criticism of _Voltaire_:

Non usque adeo permiscuit imis
Longus summa dies, ut non, si voce Metelli
Serventur leges, malint a Caesare tolli.

Yet when I speak thus slightly of dramatick rules, I cannot but
recollect how much wit and learning may be produced against me; before
such authorities I am afraid to stand, not that I think the present
question one of those that are to be decided by mere authority, but
because it is to be suspected, that these precepts have not been so
easily received but for better reasons than I have yet been able to
find. The result of my enquiries, in which it would be ludicrous to
boast of impartiality, is, that the unities of time and place are not
essential to a just drama, that though they may sometimes conduce to
pleasure, they are always to be sacrificed to the nobler beauties
of variety and instruction; and that a play, written with nice
observation of critical rules, is to be contemplated as an elaborate
curiosity, as the product of superfluous and ostentatious art, by
which is shewn, rather what is possible, than what is necessary.

He that, without diminution of any other excellence, shall preserve
all the unities unbroken, deserves the like applause with the
architect, who shall display all the orders of architecture in a
citadel; without any deduction from its strength; but the principal
beauty of a citadel is to exclude the enemy; and the greatest graces
of a play, are to copy nature and instruct life.

Perhaps what I have here not dogmatically but deliberatively written,
may recal the principles of the drama to a new examination. I am
almost frighted at my own temerity; and when I estimate the fame and
the strength of those that maintain the contrary opinion, am ready to
sink down in reverential silence; as _AEneas_ withdrew from the defence
of _Troy_, when he saw _Neptune_ shaking the wall, and _Juno_ heading
the besiegers.

Those whom my arguments cannot persuade to give their approbation
to the judgment of _Shakespeare_, will easily, if they consider the
condition of his life, make some allowance for his ignorance.

Every man's performances, to be rightly estimated, must be compared
with the state of the age in which he lived, and with his own
particular opportunities; and though to the reader a book be not worse
or better for the circumstances of the authour, yet as there is always
a silent reference of human works to human abilities, and as the
enquiry, how far man may extend his designs, or how high he may rate
his native force, is of far greater dignity than in what rank we shall
place any particular performance, curiosity is always busy to discover
the instruments, as well as to survey the workmanship, to know how
much is to be ascribed to original powers, and how much to casual and
adventitious help. The palaces of _Peru_ or _Mexico_ were certainly
mean and incommodious habitations, if compared to the houses
of _European_ monarchs; yet who could forbear to view them with
astonishment, who remembered that they were built without the use of
iron?

The _English_ nation, in the time of _Shakespeare_, was yet
struggling to emerge from barbarity. The philology of _Italy_ had
been transplanted hither in the reign of _Henry_ the Eighth; and
the learned languages had been successfully cultivated by _Lilly,
Linacer_, and _More_; by _Pole, Cheke_, and _Gardiner_; and afterwards
by _Smith, Clerk, Haddon_, and _Ascham_. Greek was now taught to boys
in the principal schools; and those who united elegance with learning,
read, with great diligence, the _Italian_ and _Spanish_ poets. But
literature was yet confined to professed scholars, or to men and women
of high rank. The publick was gross and dark; and to be able to read
and write, was an accomplishment still valued for its rarity.

Nations, like individuals, have their infancy. A people newly awakened
to literary curiosity, being yet unacquainted with the true state
of things, knows not how to judge of that which is proposed as its
resemblance. Whatever is remote from common appearances is always
welcome to vulgar, as to childish credulity; and of a country
unenlightened by learning, the whole people is the vulgar. The study
of those who then aspired to plebeian learning was laid out upon
adventures, giants, dragons, and enchantments. _The Death of Arthur
was_ the favourite volume.

The mind, which has feasted on the luxurious wonders of fiction, has
no taste of the insipidity of truth. A play which imitated only
the common occurrences of the world, would, upon the admirers of
_Palmerin_ and _Guy_ of _Warwick_, have made little impression; he
that wrote for such an audience was under the necessity of looking
round for strange events and fabulous transactions, and that
incredibility, by which maturer knowledge is offended, was the chief
recommendation of writings, to unskilful curiosity.

Our authour's plots are generally borrowed from novels, and it is
reasonable to suppose, that he chose the most popular, such as were
read by many, and related by more; for his audience could not have
followed him through the intricacies of the drama, had they not held
the thread of the story in their hands.

The stories, which we now find only in remoter authours, were in his
time accessible and familiar. The fable of _As you like it_, which is
supposed to be copied from _Chaucer's_ Gamelyn, was a little pamphlet
of those times; and old Mr. _Cibber_ remembered the tale of _Hamlet_
in plain _English_ prose, which the criticks have now to seek in _Saxo
Grammaticus._

His _English_ histories he took from _English_ chronicles and
_English_ ballads; and as the ancient writers were made known to
his countrymen by versions, they supplied him with new subjects; he
dilated some of _Plutarch's_ lives into plays, when they had been
translated by _North_.

His plots, whether historical or fabulous, are always crouded with
incidents, by which the attention of a rude people was more easily
caught than by sentiment or argumentation; and such is the power of
the marvellous even over those who despise it, that every man finds
his mind more strongly seized by the tragedies of _Shakespeare_ than
of any other writer; others please us by particular speeches, but he
always makes us anxious for the event, and has perhaps excelled all
but _Homer_ in securing the first purpose of a writer, by exciting
restless and unquenchable curiosity and compelling him that reads his
work to read it through. The shows and bustle with which his plays
abound have the same original. As knowledge advances, pleasure passes
from the eye to the ear, but returns, as it declines, from the ear to
the eye. Those to whom our authour's labours were exhibited had more
skill in pomps or processions than in poetical language, and perhaps
wanted some visible and discriminated events, as comments on the
dialogue. He knew how he should most please; and whether his practice
is more agreeable to nature, or whether his example has prejudiced the
nation, we still find that on our stage something must be done as
well as said, and inactive declamation is very coldly heard, however
musical or elegant, passionate or sublime.

_Voltaire_ expresses his wonder, that our authour's extravagances are
endured by a nation, which has seen the tragedy of _Cato_. Let him
be answered, that _Addison_ speaks the language of poets, and
_Shakespeare_, of men. We find in _Cato_ innumerable beauties which
enamour us of its authour, but we see nothing that acquaints us with
human sentiments or human actions; we place it with the fairest and
the noblest progeny which judgment propagates by conjunction with
learning, but _Othello_ is the vigorous and vivacious offspring
of observation impregnated by genius. _Cato_ affords a splendid
exhibition of artificial and fictitious manners, and delivers just and
noble sentiments, in diction easy, elevated and harmonious, but its
hopes and fears communicate no vibration to the heart; the composition
refers us only to the writer; we pronounce the name of _Cato_, but we
think on _Addison_.

The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed
and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers;
the composition of _Shakespeare_ is a forest, in which oaks extend
their branches, and pines tower in the air, interspersed sometimes
with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelter to myrtles and
to roses; filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind
with endless diversity. Other poets display cabinets of precious
rarities, minutely finished, wrought into shape, and polished into
brightness. _Shakespeare_ opens a mine which contains gold and
diamonds in unexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incrustations,
debased by impurities, and mingled with a mass of meaner minerals.

It has been much disputed, whether _Shakespeare_ owed his excellence
to his own native force, or whether he had the common helps of
scholastick education, the precepts of critical science, and the
examples of ancient authours.

There has always prevailed a tradition, that _Shakespeare_ wanted
learning, that he had no regular education, nor much skill in the dead
languages. _Johnson_, his friend, affirms, that _he had small Latin,
and no Greek_; who, besides that he had no imaginable temptation to
falsehood, wrote at a time when the character and acquisitions of
_Shakespeare_ were known to multitudes. His evidence ought therefore
to decide the controversy, unless some testimony of equal force could
be opposed.

Some have imagined, that they have discovered deep learning in many
imitations of old writers; but the examples which I have known urged,
were drawn from books translated in his time; or were such easy
coincidences of thought, as will happen to all who consider the same
subjects; or such remarks on life or axioms of morality as float in
conversation, and are transmitted through the world in proverbial
sentences.

I have found it remarked, that, in this important sentence, _Go
before, I'll follow_, we read a translation of, _I prae, sequar_. I
have been told, that when _Caliban_, after a pleasing dream, says, _I
cry'd to sleep again_, the authour imitates _Anacreon_, who had, like
every other man, the same wish on the same occasion.

There are a few passages which may pass for imitations, but so few,
that the exception only confirms the rule; he obtained them from
accidental quotations, or by oral communication, and as he used what
he had, would have used more if he had obtained it.

The _Comedy of Errors_ is confessedly taken from the _Menaechmi_
of _Plautus_; from the only play of _Plautus_ which was then in
_English_. What can be more probable, than that he who copied that,
would have copied more; but that those which were not translated were
inaccessible?

Whether he knew the modern languages is uncertain. That his plays have
some _French_ scenes proves but little; he might easily procure them
to be written, and probably, even though he had known the language in
the common degree, he could not have written it without assistance. In
the story of _Romeo_ and _Juliet_ he is observed to have followed the
_English_ translation, where it deviates from the _Italian_; but
this on the other part proves nothing against his knowledge of the
original. He was to copy, not what he knew himself, but what was known
to his audience.

It is most likely that he had learned _Latin_ sufficiently to make him
acquainted with construction, but that he never advanced to an easy
perusal of the _Roman_ authours. Concerning his skill in modern
languages, I can find no sufficient ground of determination; but as
no imitations of _French_ or _Italian_ authours have been discovered,
though the _Italian_ poetry was then high in esteem, I am inclined to
believe, that he read little more than _English_, and chose for his
fables only such tales as he found translated.

That much knowledge is scattered over his works is very justly
observed by _Pope_, but it is often such knowledge as books did not
supply. He that will understand _Shakespeare_, must not be content to
study him in the closet, he must look for his meaning sometimes among
the sports of the field, and sometimes among the manufactures of the
shop.

There is however proof enough that he was a very diligent reader, nor
was our language then so indigent of books, but that he might very
liberally indulge his curiosity without excursion into foreign
literature. Many of the _Roman_ authours were translated, and some of
the _Greek_; the reformation had filled the kingdom with theological
learning; most of the topicks of human disquisition had found
_English_ writers; and poetry had been cultivated, not only with
diligence, but success. This was a stock of knowledge sufficient for a
mind so capable of appropriating and improving it.

But the greater part of his excellence was the product of his
own genius. He found the _English_ stage in a state of the utmost
rudeness; no essays either in tragedy or comedy had appeared, from
which it could be discovered to what degree of delight either one
or other might be carried. Neither character nor dialogue were yet
understood. _Shakespeare_ may be truly said to have introduced them
both amongst us, and in some of his happier scenes to have carried
them both to the utmost height.

By what gradations of improvement he proceeded, is not easily known;
for the chronology of his works is yet unsettled. _Rowe_ is of
opinion, that _perhaps we are not to look for his beginning, like
those of other writers, in his least perfect works; art had so little,
and nature so large a share in what he did, that for ought I know_,
says he, _the performances of his youth, as they were the most
vigorous, were the best._ But the power of nature is only the power of
using to any certain purpose the materials which diligence procures,
or opportunity supplies. Nature gives no man knowledge, and when
images are collected by study and experience, can only assist in
combining or applying them. _Shakespeare_, however favoured by nature,
could impart only what he had learned; and as he must increase his
ideals, like other mortals, by gradual acquisition, he, like them,
grew wiser as he grew older, could display life better, as he knew it
more, and instruct with more efficacy, as he was himself more amply
instructed.

There is a vigilance of observation and accuracy of distinction which
books and precepts cannot confer; from this almost all original
and native excellence proceeds. _Shakespeare_ must have looked
upon mankind with perspicacity, in the highest degree curious and
attentive. Other writers borrow their characters from preceding
writers, and diversify them only by the accidental appendages of
present manners; the dress is a little varied, but the body is the
same. Our authour had both matter and form to provide; for except
the characters of _Chaucer_, to whom I think he is not much indebted,
there were no writers in _English_, and perhaps not many in other
modern languages, which shewed life in its native colours.

The contest about the original benevolence or malignity of man had not
yet commenced. Speculation had not yet attempted to analyse the
mind, to trace the passions to their sources, to unfold the seminal
principles of vice and virtue, or sound the depths of the heart for
the motives of action. All those enquiries, which from that time that
human nature became the fashionable study, have been made sometimes
with nice discernment, but often with idle subtilty, were yet
unattempted. The tales, with which the infancy of learning was
satisfied, exhibited only the superficial appearances of action,
related the events but omitted the causes, and were formed for such as
delighted in wonders rather than in truth. Mankind was not then to
be studied in the closet; he that would know the world, was under the
necessity of gleaning his own remarks, by mingling as he could in its
business and amusements.

_Boyle_ congratulated himself upon his high birth, because it favoured
his curiosity, by facilitating his access. _Shakespeare_ had no such
advantage; he came to _London_ a needy adventurer, and lived for a
time by very mean employments. Many works of genius and learning have
been performed in states of life, that appear very little favourable
to thought or to enquiry; so many, that he who considers them
is inclined to think that he sees enterprise and perseverance
predominating over all external agency, and bidding help and hindrance
vanish before them. The genius of _Shakespeare_ was not to be
depressed by the weight of poverty, nor limited by the narrow
conversation to which men in want are inevitably condemned; the
incumbrances of his fortune were shaken from his mind, _as dewdrops
from a lion's mane_.

Though he had so many difficulties to encounter, and so little
assistance to surmount them, he has been able to obtain an
exact knowledge of many modes of life, and many casts of native
dispositions; to vary them with great multiplicity; to mark them
by nice distinctions; and to shew them in full view by proper
combinations. In this part of his performances he had none to imitate,
but has himself been imitated by all succeeding writers; and it may
be doubted, whether from all his successors more maxims of theoretical
knowledge, or more rules of practical prudence, can be collected, than
he alone has given to his country.

Nor was his attention confined to the actions of men; he was an exact
surveyor of the inanimate world; his descriptions have always some
peculiarities, gathered by contemplating things as they really exist.
It may be observed, that the oldest poets of many nations preserve
their reputation, and that the following generations of wit, after a
short celebrity, sink into oblivion. The first, whoever they be, must
take their sentiments and descriptions immediately from knowledge;
the resemblance is therefore just, their descriptions are verified by
every eye, and their sentiments acknowledged by every breast. Those
whom their fame invites to the same studies, copy partly them, and
partly nature, till the books of one age gain such authority, as
to stand in the place of nature to another, and imitation,
always deviating a little, becomes at last capricious and casual.
_Shakespeare_, whether life or nature be his subject, shews plainly,
that he has seen with his own eyes; he gives the image which he
receives, not weakened or distorted by the intervention of any other
mind; the ignorant feel his representations to be just, and the
learned see that they are compleat.

Perhaps it would not be easy to find any authour, except _Homer_, who
invented so much as _Shakespeare_, who so much advanced the studies
which he cultivated, or effused so much novelty upon his age or
country. The form, the characters, the language, and the shows of the
_English_ drama are his, _He seems_, says _Dennis, to have been the
very original of our_ English _tragical harmony, that is, the harmony
of blank verse, diversified often by dissyllable and trissyllable
terminations. For the diversity distinguishes it from heroick harmony,
and by bringing it nearer to common use makes it more proper to gain
attention, and more fit for action and dialogue. Such verse we make
when we are writing prose; we make such verse in common conversation_.