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DE L’UNITE LITTERAIRE
AU XVIIe SlfiCLE
PAR M. CH. LOUANDRE
Dans la plupart des jugements portes de notre temps sur le dixseptieme siecle y c’est toujours la question de forme et d’art qui
domine. Certes, nous nous plaisons a reconnaitre, en litterature, la
puissance de la forme et l’influence qu’elle exerce sur le jugement; mais il est certain que l’admiration persistante qui s’attache
aux maitres du grand siecle, a une cause encore plus elevee9 et
qu’ici, le style, si parfait qu’il soit, ne vient cependant qu’en seconde ligne. En effet, dans les ouvrages de l’esprit, au-dessus de la
phrase, il y a l’idee, la vefite, 1’application pratique, la portee morale,
et c’est la surtout ce qui fait la force de nos classiques. Ils s’attachent
tous a quelque grand principe; ils combattent tous pour la meme
cause, et ce qui caracterise l’ensemble de leurs oeuvres, c’est Runite
d’inspiration, Runite de but, et la ressemblance dans la variete. Ces
grands esprits ont ete, dans ces dernieres annees, l’objet de nombreuses et fortes etudes; ils ont attire a eux, par une sorte de sympathie
mysterieuse, les ecrivains qui sont 1’honneur de notre temps, et si
nous venons en parler apres tant d’autres, ce n’est pas que nous ayons
la pretention de les mieux apprecier, de les faire mieux connaitre, ou
de rectifier les jugements que nos conlemporains en ont portes. Nous
voulons seulement les rapprocher les uns des autres pour chercher
le lien qui les rattache entre eux, indiquer le but qu’ils ont a leur
insu poursuivi d’un commun accord, et montrer dans cette unite un
des plus curieux caracteres du dix-septieme siecle. Dans un sujet
aussi vaste nous ne pouvons qu’indiquer quelques traits generaux, et
parmi ces morts glorieux choisir les plus glorieux et les plus grands. I
Commencons par Bossuet.
�DE L’IjNITE LITTERAIRE AU XVII® si&CLE.
12£
I
A part 1’Imitation de Jesus-Christy tous les livres catholiques du
moyen age, composes par des pretres ou par des moines, s’adressent
particulierement au clerge, et restent enfermes dans le cloitre ou
dans l’ecole. Latheologie, dedaigneuse de la forme et de Fart, estcompletement separee de la litterature. Au dix-septieme siecle, au contraire, la litterature et la theologie se confondent, et celle-ci, Vivante
et pratique, emprunte a l’eloquence sa force et son eclat pour agir sur
la societe laique,. C’est par Bossuet que s’accomplit cette alliance.
Controversiste, historien, predicateur, philosophe, Bossuet s’attache
sans cesse a la meme pensee, qui est de montrer partout Faction
incessante de Dieu dans les affaires humaines; Le plus beau de seslivres, le Discours sur Ihistoire universelie n’est rien autre chose,
il n’est pas besoin de le rappeler, que la theorie du gouvernement
temporel de la Providence, l’explication de la politique divine dans
l’histoire. Pour rendre cette theorie, plus saisissante, Bossuet la
transporte au sein meme du paganisme, Foppose au dogme antique
de’la fatalite et detrone le hasard. Dieu regne «et tient les fils dans
ses mains... » Or, depuis la Venue du Christ; le gouvernement de
Dieu a pris, par l’Eglise catholique, une forme sensible sur la terre.
Ce sera done a la defense de l’figlise que Bossuet consacrera toute
Fardeur de sa controverse. Il traitera d’abord de sa doctrine; puis
il la montrera toujours immuable, toujours inflexible, perpetuant
cette doctrine a travers les ages, ne changeant jamais, parce qu’elle
s’appuie sur celui qui ne change pas : de la le magnifique sermon sur
Wunite de I’Eglise; et comme tout s’enchaine, dans ce systeme, avec
une logique irresistible, Bossuet part de cette unite, pour jeler au
protestantisme le deli superbe qu’on appelle VHistolre des varia
tions.
Apres avoir fait la part de Dieu et de l’liiglise dans lestrois ouvrages
dontnous venons de parler, l’eveque de Meaux redescend vers l’homme,
et lui trace ses devoirs a l’egard du Createur et de ses semblables. Il
lui demande, avec la phifosophie antique, de s’etudier soi-meme, avec
la philosophic chretienne, de s’elever par la raison jusqu’a son auteur.
De la, le Traite de la connaissance de Dieu et de soi-meme, science
supreme, de laquelle decoulent toutes les notions du juste et de l’injuste, du mal et du bien, et par cela meme le dogme de la responsa-
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bilite; maispourque Fhommesoitresponsable,il fautqu’il soil libre*
Bossuet etablira done cette liberte dans un traits nouveau, qu’on peut
considerer comme l’un des livres les plus profonds qui aient ete ecrits
pour concilierla toute-puissance divine etl’ in de pen dance de lavolonte
humaine. Comme saint Thomas, l’eveque de Meaux a donne, en
touchant a ces mysteres, une veritable somme de la doctrine catholique, et ses autres oeuvres ne sont que le developpement de cette
doctrine dans ses rapports avec la vie de chaque jour et les classes les
plus diverses de la societe. C’est par F&criture sainte qu’il enseigne,
aux rois l’artde regner; c’est par le catechisme du diocese de Meaux,
qui deviendra apres un siecle le catechisme de la France, qu’il apprend aux pauvres a bien vivre« Ses sermons, trop peu conaus, sont
comme une lutta obstinee et incessante contre les instincts pervers
de notre nature, et suivant le mot heureux de madame de Sevigne,
il se bat a outrance avec son auditor?e^ pour l’attendrir, l’effrayer
et le convaincre. L’oraison funebre est pour lui comme le dernier
mot de cet enseignemeni de la chaire, etquand il a epuise la theologie
et l’eloquence y il s’adresse a la mort qui repond : Dieu seal est
grand.
On pourrait croire qu’en proclamant ainsile neant de l’homme, le
neant de sa gloire et de sa puissance, en face des cercueils de Conde
et de madame Henriette, Bossuet va. perdre de vue les interets, les
preoccupations, les soins du monde et de la vie de chaque jour. Ces
interets, au contraire, lui sont toujours presents et familiers; la disci-'
pline interieure d’une abbaye, la direction de conscience de quelques
humbles religieuses,. les details de Fadministration de son diocese,.
Foccupent a l’egal de la theodicee. Il regie tout, il definit tout aven
la meme'rigueur de raison, la meme clarte, la meme eloquence, et
son oeuvre,, dans ses diverses parties^ n’est en definitive qu’un enseignement continue! qui embrasse 1’ensemble des verites divines et
humaines. C’est la ce qui en fait la force et la duree, car s’il regne.
par l’autorite de la doctrine sur la conscience de ceux qui croient,
il regne aussi sur Fame de ceux qui doutent par l’autorite de la,
morale,.
Theologien, philosophe, moraliste comme Bossuet, Fenelon suit
une route exactement semblable. Le Traite de I’existence de Dieu
est le pendant du Traite de la connaissance de Dieu et de soi-meme.
IdExamen de conscience d’un roi est la contre-partie de la Politique'
tiree de I'Ecriture sainte. hs Telemaque est destine a l’education
�AU XVIIe SI&CLE.
127
dn due de Bourgogne, comme le Discours sur Ihistoire universelle
a l’education du Dauphin. Mais tout en s’occupant des princes, l’archeveque de Cambrai, comme l’eveque de Meaux, se souvient de ceux
qui vivent de la vie simple et commune; il sait que, dans les families, ?
c’est rhonneur de la mere qui fait, l’honneur de l’enfant, la joie do
l’epoux, qui est le soutien du travail; et pour preparer la femme au
I role sacre de la materriite, il ecrit son. admirable Traite de I education
des piles. C’est toujours une pensee essentiellement pratique, uno
pensee d’enseignement qui domine. Sa theorie de- l’education contient
le programme de la maison de Saint-Cy®. Compose pour les enfants des
rbis, le Telemaque, predication chMetienne encadree dans uii roman
pai'en, est devenu le livre de nos ecoles. Pension poursuit, le meme
hut que Bossuet: le perfeetionnement moral de 1’homme. Un seul
» point separe ces-grands esprits : Bossuet maintient dans. sa. rigueur
l’inflexible autorite de la traditionc’est I’homme du passe, le der
nier des Peres. Fenelon, c’est l’homme de Tavenir, I’apdtre de la
tolerance moderne; il a te vague pressentiment des grandes reformes
qui doivent bientot s’accomplir dans la societe francaise, et Louis XIV
le traite presqu’en ennemi,. en brulant les manuscrits qu’il avait laisses entre les mains du due de Bourgogne, comme si le grand roi
avait devine, dans i’utopie de Salente, un indice precurseur de cette
revolution qui devait renverser sa. race.
Par les Provinciates et les Pensees, Pascal se rattache directement
a la meme tradition. Dans le premier de ces livres, la dispute sur
cette tenebreuse question de la Grace qui remonte a Pelage,, n’est
qu’uh incident du combat engage entre les disciples de Jansenius et
les disciples de Molina; mais ce qui domine, ce qui fait la force et
l’imperissable autorite du livre, c’est la polemique contre les relachements de la morale. Quelle que soit Fopinion qu’on ait sur un ordre
celebre,il n’en est pas moinsvrai que les maximes des casuistes
sur les restrictions menta-lcs-, les banqueroutes JThomicide , le pro-?
babilisme, installaient, suivant l’heureuse expression de M... Sainte, Beuve, le machiavelisme a 1’ombre de la croix. Ces maximes met|taient en peril la morale divine et la morale sociale, et le danger
etait d’autant plus grand qu’elles partaient d’un ordre qua avait
ete le plus ferme soutien de Dunite catholique. Pascal decouvrit
d’un coup d’ceil toute la profondeur du mal. Entrains par son indi
gnation. d’honnete homme, il defendit les droits de. la consciencecontre les sophismes d’une theologie corrompue; et en refutant
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Escobar, Vasquez et Caramuel, il a ramene la morale a la source
divine.
Dans les Pensees, Pascal s’eleve a une hauteur qui trouble et qui
confond. L’eloquence et la poesie debordent comme des torrents a
chaque page de ce livre, ruine immortelle d’un monument a peine
ebauche; mais ici encore le but est essentiellement pratique:
l’homme ne sait ni d’ou il vient, ni ou il va; il est dans un doute ter-l
rible de toutes choses; il sait qu’il doit mourir, mais ce qu’il ignore
le plus, c’est cette mort meme qu’il ne saurait eviter. Peut-il rester
dans cette ignorance? non, car du moment ou il s’est considere soimenie, il n’a plus de repos qu’il n’ait trouve le secret de son etre.
— Eh bien! lui dit Pascal, cherchons ensemble; etudions cet etat
plein de misere, de souffrance, de tenebres qu’on appelle la vie. —
Quelle etude et quel tableau! toutes les grandeurs, toutes les fai-l
blesses sont mises a nu dans une incomparable analyse; et quand
1’homme effraye de lui-meme, et perdu dans sa propre pensee, se
demande quel est le mot de ce mystere, Pascal lui repond : — Qui
demelera cet embrouillement? sera-ce la raison? non, car elle flotte,
depuis que le monde dure, entre le pyrrhonisme et le dogmatisme,
et l’on ne peut etre pyrrhonien sans etouffer la nature, ni dogmatiste
sans etouffer la raison. Sera-ce la philosophie? non, car elle voit
chacune de ses affirmations detruite par une affirmation contraired
— Quelques pas encore, et l’homme est englouti dans les abimes du
scepticisme. Mais Pascal s’arrete, car il ne l’a conduit jusque-la que
pour lui reveler l’enigme de sa destinee par le tableau de sa faiblesse
et de sa grandeur et les etonnantes contradictions de sa nature. Cette
enigme, la religion peut seule en donner le mot. Mais quelle reli
gion choisir entre celles qui se partagent le monde? Celle qui portera
dans son histoire le temoignage d’une revelation divine; ce temoignage, Pascal le decouvre dans le christianisme, a travers les obscurites du dogme, les propheties et les miracles, et, la Bible et
l’Evangile a la main, il nous conduit jusqu’au pied du Calvaire, ou
l’homme apprend a connaitre Dieu par le Christ, et par le Christ a se
connaitre soi-meme.
Pascal, on le voit, touche d’un cote a Fenelon et a Bossuet, et de
l’autre a Descartes, a Malebranche, a Nicole; il cherche avec les philosophes, il croit avec les theologiens; et comme tous les penseurs de
son siecle, il marche en s’eclairant des lumieres de la raison et des
lumieres de la foi.
�AU XVII* SIfiCLE.
H
129
II
La Bruyere et La Rochefoucauld completent, comme observateurs
et comme moralistes, Fecole philosophique du dix-septieme siecle.
Homme du monde et homme de cour, La Rochefoucauld semble prefer
main-forte aux theologiens en comhattant plus particulierement les
vices que ceux-ci attaquent avec le plus: de force et de vivacite. On a
pu, avec raison, accuser La Rochefoucauld d’avbir calomnie la nature
humaine en ramenant a l’egoisme le mobile de toutes nos actions;
mais il faut tenir compte de la- sphere dans laquelle il a vecu, et qui.
est justement celle ou la personnalite se developpe avec le plus de
force. Mele aux troubles de la Fronde, il avait vu Finteret general
constamment sacrifie a Finteret particulier^le devoir a l’ambition. Il
etait done naturel qu’il fit passer dans son’ oeuvre■•les observations
qu’il avait puisees dans le spectacle des evenements. Sans doute, il a
trop generalise, en le presentant comme exclusif; un sentiment ou
,plutdt un vice qui, pour We fort commtm', admet ceperiWmt encore
de nombreuses exceptions'; mais il n’en a pas moiiis rendu un grand
service a la philosophic morale; car il'a mis a nu'les plus secretes
manoeuvres de l’egoisme, et Fon peut en quelques points le comparer
a Machiavel, qui, en tracant dans le livre du Prince la theorie exageree du succes a tout prix et le code de F Ambition, a dechire tous
les voiles de l’imposture politique. Enfin, il nous semb'le que les
Maximes de La Rochefoucauld et
Traite de la concupiscences
Bossuet se touchent par une infinite de cotes, etqueces livres ne sont
tous deux qu’une sorte de casuistique, Tune; mOndaine, l’autre religieuse, ou l’homme apprend a se defendre* centre' cet amour du moi
qui trouble sa raison, endurcit son coeur et l’egare eiU le flattant.
Moins profond peut-etre que La Rochefoucauld, mais moins exclu
sif, La Bruyere est sans cOntredit l’un de nos ecrivains dont les
oeuvres sont le plus lues et le plus goutees. Contemplateur comme
Moliere, il a porte, comme lui, l’eloquence dans la raillerie, et par
le meme sentiment d’honnetete, il a fait de la satire une ecole de sagesse. Sa critique morale est essentiellement - classique, e’est-a-dire
qu’elle est basee sur cette raison conforme a la verite qui survit a
toqtes les variations de l’opinion. Observateur plein de finesse, il saisit
les nuances les plus fugitives; il ne generalise pas les exceptions, il
individualise au contraire les generalites, et c’est la ce qui donne a
Tome III. — 9e Livraison.
9
�no
DE L’UNITfi LITT&RAIRE
ses portraits une realite si saisissante. Les types qu’il a crees sont si
vivants, qu’au moment ou son livre parut, le public mit un nom audessous de chaque portrait, car chacun croyait reconnaitre les hommes
que le grand peintre avail fait poser devant lui; mais. quand ces
hommes eurent disparu, les portraits recurent des noms. nouveaux,, et
la ressemblance resta tout aussi frappante, O-n vit aloes, qu’il s’agis—
sail, non pas de quelques hommes, mais de tons les hommes, non
pas de Versailles ou de Paris ,; mais. du monde. Les aeteurs etaient
changes,mais ceux qui. les remplacaientjouaient toujours les memes*
roles*
Quand on pareourt.ee livre des G3z,«^m,;quipromene le lecteur
avec un. apparent desordre a teavers le monde et la vie, on ne saisit
pas toujpurs ridee generalc quirelie ces fragments entre. eux; rnais
le lien et le but definitif ne sauraient echapper a. une lecture atten
tive. La Bruyere,d’ailleurs, dans la Preface du discours a Acade
mic francaise,a pris soind’indiquer l’ensemble de* son plan. Il dresse
d’abord I’inventaire de nos ridicules et de nos vices; et, quand il a
montre le pen que nous sommes,, le? peu. que valent les bieus de la
fortune, les illusions de la grandeur et eelle&de 1’amour-propre, combien nos jugements sont incertains, nos passions mesquines, nos agi
tations sterilespour le bonheur,il se detourne tout a coup de nos.
Tniq^yeg joAMy
comme; il le dit< jusqudDieu d tracers le del
et les «^m,et couronner son etincelante. satire par la belle con
clusion. qui a pour titre Les. esprits forts* G’est dans ce chapitre
qu’estle secret de son livre * etce secret qui en fait l’unite se revels.dans cette phrase » Lieu se decouvre et I ordre est retab-li^
Nous nous trompons peut-etre, mais il. nous semble qu’entre les*
Pense.es. de Pascal et les, Caraeteres il existe. une analogie incontes—•
table. Pour donner un sens aux aspirations de notre aine, pour exp-11quer. la vie et conclure a la necessity du dogme chretien, Pascal met
rhomme en presence du mystere de sa grandeur et du mystere de
son neant. Pour demontrer lanecessite de la morale chretienne,, La
Bruyere.met rhomme en presence de ses vices et de ses faiblesses, et
tandis que Pascal nous ramene a Dieu par I’enignae. de notre desti—
nee r Bossuet par I’histoire,. Fenelon par le miracle permanent, du.
mondeLa Bruyere nous- y ramene a son tour par le tableau de nos
moeurs.
-i.:.... t! ,
�AEFXVIF* SIEGLE.
’
13i
in
Ce ne sont pas settlement les theologiens, les philosophes, les moralistesqui prennent, an. dix-septieme siecle, ee pole pratique d’educateurs que nous venons de signaler; les poetes marchent dans la
meme voie, et le lien qui les unit aux prosateurs les reunit encore
entre eux, soit qu’ik embrassent, comme Corneille, Racine etBoileau, les fortes croyances de leur temps, soil qu’ils s’en separent;
comme Moliere ei La Fontaine, pour parler uniquement au nom de la
raison, et remonter par les fibres penseurs, de la reforme et la veine
railleuse et sceptique du moyen age, jusqu’a la philosophie antique.
Ce qui frappe (Tabard quand on eompiare Corneille et Racine, c’est
la conformite de leur foi ehretienne, de cette foi sincere et profonde
qui s humilie et ne discute pas, Corneille lit.' chaque jour le Breviaire
romain, comme Racine en traduit les hymnes. Il met en vers, par
esprit de penitence, Vlimtation de Jesus—Christ> et par esprit de
■penitence Racine renonce au theatre. De la les chefs-d’oeuvre Chre
tiens t. Polyeucte, Athalie, Esther; de la aussi ee grand sentiment
du devoir, qui eleve et ennoblit la peinture des passions.
On a dit que letheatre de Corneille etaitune ecole de grandeur; le
mot est juste, mais c’est aussi Tecole du sacrifice et du dqvouement.
Voyez le Cid I Le poete, dans Texamen de cette piece, donne d’un
seul mot toute sa theorie ; —- Chimene et Rodrigue suivent le devoir,
sans rien relacher de la passion, — voila le ressort dramatique; —
le devoir triomphe, — voila la sanction morale.
Le caractere du vieil Horace nous offre une donnee semblahle. A
Rome, la patrie est divinisee; T amour du pays s’eleve a la hauteur
d’une foi religieuse, et demine par cela mdme tons lea autres senti
ments. Horace sacrifiera done sa tendresse de pere. a sa foi de Ro
main, et Corneille choisira ce sujet, pour montrer T abnegation dans
toute son energie sauvage. Le meme ressort. dramatique se retrouve
dans Pulyeucte. Lapassiondans.ee qu’elle a de plus noble et de plus
pur est aux prises avec l’amour divin, et Polyeucte s’immole aDieux
comme le pere des Horaces s’immolait a Rome.
Tous les nobles sentiments, tous ceux qui touchent a l’heroisme
qu le provoquent, sont tour a tour evoques par Corneille. Dans
Cinnaz Auguste personnifie la clemence, et ce vers'celebre :
Je suis maitre de moi comme de 1’univers,
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DE I/UNITfi LITTfiRAIRE
nous montre que, si haut que nous eleve notre destinee, les plus belles
victoires sont celles que nous remportons sur nous-memes. Dans la
Mort de Pompee, Cesar punit par la colere et le mepris l’assassinat
qui sert sa fortune, et Cornelie, faisant taire une haine aussi profonde
que ses regrets, se jette au-devant du coup qui menace le vainqueur
de Pharsale. Les enseignements les plus genereux de l’histoire semblent se resumer dans les tragedies de Corneille, et jamais la poesie
n’a propose l’exemple des grandes choses dans un plus magnifique
langage.
Plus tempera que Fauteur de Polyeucte^ et toujours plus pres des
realites de la vie commune, Racine nous attendrit et nous eclaire sur
nous-memes par la peinture fidele et charmante de nos troubles interieurs. Nous entendons dans ses vers comme un echo des orages qui
grondent en nous; mais le devoir est toujours en lutte avec la pas
sion, et quand la passion triomphe, le poete ne manque jamais de
l’humilier par le remords. Ses tragedies, comme celles de Corneille,
ne sont en definitive que l’eloquente apologie de tous les nobles in
stincts. Monime, Iphigenie, ne sont-elles pas les soeurs paiennes de
Pauline? Alexandre, vainqueur de Porus, lui rendant son royaume,
n’est-il pas, en fait de generosite, le rival d’Auguste pardonnant a
Cinna, le rival de Cesar pleurant Pompee? Esther ne representet-elle pas le patriotisme juif, comme Horace le patriotisme romain?
Andromaque, Clytemnestre ne sont-elles pas le plus parfait modele
de l’amour maternel, l’ideal de la tendresse antique complete par la
tendresse chretienne, comme Britannicus est le type acheve des vertus
et des graces de F adolescence? Le culte de la beaute morale a meme
ete porte si loin par Racine qu’il brise quelquefois entre ses mains
l’instrument tragique; et c’est ainsi que ce grand poete a ete accuse
d’avoir affaibli, dans Andromaque et dans Britannicus, l’un des ressorts les plus puissants du drame, la terreur, en attenuant la ferocite
de Pyrrhus, et l’ambitieuse et lascive cruaute d’Agrippine. La cri
tique est juste, mais ces infidelites faites a l’histoire ne sont qu’un
hommage rendu par le poete a l’ideal qu’il poursuivait sans cesse;
et s’il adoucit ces personnages sombres et terribles qui se debattent
contre la fatalite, c’est qu’il regarde toujours le monde antique des
hauteurs du christianisme.
Moins grand que Corneille et Racine, moins grand que La Fontaine
et Moliere, Boileau occupe cependant encore a cote d’eux un rang
eminent, et jamais ecrivain n’a rendu aux lettres de plus signales ser-
�.A
AU XVIIe SIECLE.
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133
vices. Il a defendu le veritable talent contre la mediocrite vaniteuse;
et c’est la pour lui un eternel honneur, car il faut une grande generosite d’esprit, quand soi-meme on poursuit la gloire, pour s’elever
au-dessus du denigrement et rendre justice a des rivaux et a des maitres. Il a montre par le precepte et par l’exemple que la verite est la
source des belles inspirations, et que pour bien ecrire, il faut bien penser. Il a porte dans la litterature la fierte de l’honnetete et la fierte du
bon sens. Il s’est declare l’adversaire impitoyable du mauvais gout et
des sentiments faux, et par cela meme il a sauvegarde la morale publique, car les sentiments faux, en egarant les esprits, degradent les
caracteres et entrainent la ruine des societes. Boileau est de la famille
de La Bruyere; il a sonde comme lui la profondeur de la sottise humaine, et ses satires sont comme un echo fidele des sarcasmes et des
lecons que les railleurs de tous les ages ont adresses a la triste posterity
d’Adam. On a pu quelquefois contester sa verve; on n’a jamais conteste sa raison, et il ne se rencontre pas dans toutes ses oeuvres un
seul precepte que l’on puisse dementir au nom de l’experience, une
seule maxime litteraire que l’ori puisse recuser au nom du gout.
IV
Par son caractere exclusivement philosophiquev Moliere occupe,
ainsi que La Fontaine, une place distincte parmi les ecrivains de son
temps, mais tout en suivant une route differente, il tend encore au
meme but et marche toujours aupres d’eux. Seulement, tandis que
Bossuet, Pascal et Fenelon, cherchent dans la foi catholique la regie
absolue de la vie, tandis que La Bruyere s’efforce de nous ramener a
Dieu par le tableau de nos moeurs, Moliere reste sur la terre, n’invoque que la raison, et demande l’art de vivre avec sagesse et droiture, selon le monde et. selon la sagesse humaine, au monde luimeme, a l’experience, a l’observation de ce qui se passe chaque jour
sous nos yeux. Les personnages qu’il fait agir et parler ne sont que
l’incarnation vivante de nos defauts, de nos ridicules, de nos passions,
et meme de nos qUalites, car Moliere ne se borne pas, comme la
plupart des auteurs comiques, a representer L’homme sous ses aspects
affligeants : il sait qu’entre les fripons et les dupes, entre les me
diants et les sots, il y a les honnetes gens, qui nq sont apres tout
que les gens senses, et pour que le tableau soit complet, il met
aussi les honnetes gens sur la scene.
�134
DE L’UNIT-E LITTERAIRE
Nous l’avons dit dans une autre etude : quand on analyse ses personnages, on trouve dans la somme totale des caracteres qu’il a crees,
le miroir exact et fidele du monde. D’un cote les defauts et les ridi
cules : — l’avarice, dans Harpagon; la sottise et la vanite du parvenu.,
dans M. Jourdain; la vanite de la naissance, dans M. de Sottenviiie;
la vanite litteraire, dans Trissotin; regoisme profond, dans Arnolphe; legoisme et la pusillaaaimite,dans Argan.; les pretentions de
l’ignorance et Fexaltation des sentiments faux, dans Belise, Armande
et Philaminte; la faihlesse et 1’irresolutian, dans -Georges Dandin;
la jalousie, dans Sganarelle ; la secheresse du coeur et la coquetterie,
dans Celimene; la sceleraiesse doublee d’hypocrisie, dans lartufe;
1’audacieuse forfanteriedu vice, dans don Juan.—De l’autre cote, les
qualites* — dans Alceste, la douloureuse susceptibilite de 1’ bonne or;
dans Henriette , la grace de la maison et lasamplicite charmante; dans
Elin ire, i’honnetete;; dans Philinte, la probite indulgente etsereine;
dans Chrysale, Eesprit de conduife et la fermete du bon sens.
Pris dans son ensemble, le theatre de Moliere est done une ecole
de verite, ou chacun apprend a cormaitrc lesautres et a se reconnaitre
soi-meme; car en tracant le portrait de ses contemporains, ce contemplateur, ainsi que l’appelait Boileau, a peint comme La Bruyere les
hommes de tous les ages. Il enseigne le bon sens, comme Corneille
enseigne le devouement et Pheroisme; 11 attaque, dans lartufe, l’hy-i
pocrisie de lapiete, comme Pascal, dans les -P^ovindales, attaque
I’hypocrisie de la morale. LesEemmes savantes sont le commentaire
anticipe, profane .et mondam, du Traite deldiducation des files et des
Lettres de madame de Maintenon sur le meme sujet , comme VEcole
des femmes est la mise en scene de la satire de Boileau et des raille
ries de La Bruyere. Moliere resume, dans les types qu’il cree et qn’H
fait vivre, l’observation morale de tous les siedes, la profonde casuistique de .Bossuet et les pemtures ienergiques de Saint-Simon , et
quand Louis XIV demandait a -Boileau quel etait le plus grand des
ecrivains de son re gne, .Boileau pouvaii repondre, sans crainte d'etre
dementi par la posterite: <« Sire, c’est Moliere,.» parce que Moliare
c’est ■ la verite <et la vie elle-meme. ’ >
Cette verite, nous la retrouvons dans La’Fontaine, aussi saisis•sante ^t aussi profonde. Le fabuliste., comme d’auteur de Tartufe,
fait agir et parlersesacteursavecam sentiment si parfait de la reality
qu’on sent a chaque vers qu’ils ne peuvent ni agir ni parier.autrement. Comme Moliere, il est l’irreconciliable ennemi de la vanite*
�AU XVII® SlfiCLE.
43S
de Thypocrisie et de la ruse. Les acteurs sont changes, les caracteres
Testent les memes. La grenouille qui cherche a S’egaler au boeuf,
Tanequi porte des reliques, le mulet qui se vante de sa genealogie,
faites-en des hommes, ils s’appelleront M. de Sottenville et M. Jour
dain. Le renard s’appcllera Tartufe, le loup don Juan. La Fontaine
combat le charlatanisme des -devins et des faiseurs d’boroscopes,
comme Moliere combat le-charlatanisme des empiriques. Il se sertde
la verite et de 1’experience pour-nous donner des lemons, et ees lecons
s’adressent a tous les temps, a tous les ages, a toutes les conditions,
parce quil a complete sa propre sagesse par la sagesse de tous les
siecles. Cepai’en, egaredans lasoctetecroyantedudfe-septieme siecle,
a le sentiment chretien de la justice et du droit, de Legalite des
hommes devant Dieu, au meme degre que Fenelon. L’abus de la
force, 1’oppression des faibles, n’ont jamais trouve un plus eloquent
adversaire. Aussi, quand la Revolution francaise vint reclamer pour
les faibles la meme protection que pour les forts, et suWit&er aux
■caprices du lion la volohte de la Hoi; dle cxhuma les Testes de La
Fontaine pour leur rendre des honne’urs supremes, parce qu’elle
Teconnaissait en lui rn de -ses precurseurs, et dans ces funcrailles
populaires cetait le P&t de terre-qua prenaitsa revanche.
.
■Nous A avons point !a pretention d’avoirepuise le. sujet auquel
nous avons consacre ees pages, -bien indagnes des grands ’hommes
dont nous sommes si justement fiers. Nous avons voulu seulement
appeler l’attention sur un point de noire histoire litteraire «qui n’a
point ete suffisamment remarque, et montrer, eomme notes l’avons
dit plus haut, que si les ecrivains du dix-septieme siecle ont acquis
tant de gloire, ce ri’est pas’seutement parce qu’ils forment une ecole
de style, mais encore une ecole de sagesse et de grandeur.. Ils sont
lous de la meme ‘famiile; la source de I'inspiration est la meme pour
tous, et elle se trouve dansces trdis mots que LaBruyere a rapproches
pour la premiere fois: LE BEAU, LE VRAI, LE BIEN. Le but qu’ils
poursuivent n’est-ce pas, en effet, la recherche de la verite dans l’ordre purement humain , comme dans l’ordre surnaturel, l’etude de
Fhomme et la peinture du -monde,, Teducation de Itesprit et l’educa-tiondu coeur? n’est-ce pas la reforme d’une societe ou vivait encore le
vieil esprit feodal, avec ses privileges, ses exclusions et ses iniquites?
�J36
DE L’lLNITL' LlTTfiRAIRE
n’est-ce pas aussi la reforme de la science? Moliere se raillant des
medecins qui se payent de mots, et leur demandant le savoir et l’ob4
servation au lieu du pedantisme, n’est-il pas philogophe au meme
titre que Descartes combattant les vertus specifiques et les vertus oc-A
cultes? La Bruyere, Fenelon, dans leurs Discours a TAcademie francaise, Moliere dans les Femmes savantes et les Precieuses^ Corneille
dans les Examens de ses tragedies, ne sont-ils pas des critiques, des
maitres de style et de gout au meme titre que Boileau? Les oeuvre&i
de ces grands hommes, si* diverses qu’elles soient, s’eclairent et se
completent l’une par l’autre, et elles offrent entre elles une harmonie si parfaite qu’elles sont desormais inseparables, comme celles
d’un seul et meme auteur. Nous ne pretendons certes pas que les ecrivains du dix-septieme siecle aient marque sans retour l’extreme limite
ou l’esprit humain puisse atteindre, et que 1’art, pour s’elever a la
veritable beaute, soit condamne fatalement a les imiter; loin de la.
Mais si l’imitation est sterile, l’admiration est toujours feconde; et ce
qu il importe de maintenir, c’est qu’ils doivent etre pour tous les ages
un sujet constant d’etude, parce qu’a travers les transformations de la
langue et les changements des moeurs, ils resteront toujours profondement humains, et par cela meme profondement vrais.
Cette unite qui distingue leur talent distingue egalement leurs ca
racteres. Ilsont tous la meme simplicite, le meme desinteressementl
et ils cherchent la perfection pour leurs oeuvres, plutot que la gloire
et le bruit pour leur nom. Ce sont des gens de.bon sens et des
gens de bien, droits, sinceres, vivant de cette vie commune dont les
natures saines et fortes savent seules s’accommoder. Bossuet, qui
regne sur l’Eglise de France, s’isole, au milieu de Versailles, de
toutes les intrigues de la cour, pour lire la Bible, dans les allees soli
taires du pare, en compagnie de La Bruyere et de Fleury. Boileau,
qui regne sur les esprits de son temps, n’a point de plus chere dis
traction que le jeu de quilles, et toute son ambition se borne a vivre
tranquille dans son jardin d’Auteuil. Racine s’amuse a faire des pro
cessions avec ses enfants, et sa femme ne sait pas meme les noms de
ses pieces. Moliere, a bout de forces et deja mourant, reste au theatre,
malgre les prieres de ses amis, pour donner du pain aux acteurs de
sa troupe. Corneille, marguillier de l’eglise Saint-Sauveur de Rouen,
tient pendant trente ans les comptes de sa paroisse avec la regularity
d’un greffier. La Bruyere cache si bien sa vie, qu’elle echappe a
notre curiosite, et qu’aucun detail biographique ne vient se placer
�AU XVIIe SlfiCLE.
137
entre sa naissance et sa mort. Emprisonne par la souffrance dans la
chambre qui le verra mourir, Pascal ne songe pas meme a sauver
d’une destruction presque inevitable les pages illisibles de l’un des
plus grands livres qu’ait traces la main des hommes, et, comme les
saints du moyen age, il meurt sous le cilice, en ne se souvenant que
de Dieu. Tous ces grands hommes, en un mot, restent soumis dans
,leur conduite aux regies souveraines qu’ils ont posees dans leurs
oeuvres. Ils semblent justifier ce mot si vrai de Boileau: La fierte
de l’esprit est le vice des sots, et la fierte du coeur la vertu des honnetes gens. Ils ont le sentiment de leur force, jamais la vanite de leur
talent; on les aime, on les respecte autant qu’on les admire, et c’est
la le secret de cette popularity qui grandit toujours.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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De l'unite litteraire au XVII siecle
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Louandre, M. Ch.
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Place of publication: [Paris]
Collation: [124]-137 p. ; 26 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Le Megasin de Librairie: literature, histoire, philosophie, voyages, .... Vol. 3.
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (De l'unite litteraire au XVII siecle), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Conway Tracts
Literature
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LITTfiRATURE anglaise
PAR ALFRED MEZIERES
LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SHAKSPEARE.
CHAPITRE III.
Jonson et Balzac. — L’usurier et l’avare dans la comedie anglaise. — Plaute, Moliere
et Jonson. —La comedie de caraclere au seizieme siecle. — La Femme silencieuse- —
L’alchimiste dans la vie reelle et sur la scene.
I
Jonson connait a merveille les defauts de son temps et les ridicules
habituels de la nature humaine. Mais ce n’est pas la le spectacle qui
l’attire et qui l’interesse le plus. Il aime les investigations neuves et
curieuses, il se plait a concevoir des caracteres exceptionnels , il des
cend dans les abimes de la conscience, il scrute les sentiments etranges qui se cachent quelquefois au fond du coeur de l’homme, et il
recherche surtout les analyses qui exigent de la penetration et de la
patience. Tandis que quclques-uns de ses contemporains les plus
celebres, Beaumont et Fletcher, par exemple, glissent rapidement a
la surface des choses, sans rien approfondir, il poursuit, avec perse
verance, le developpement de ses idees, il tire des phenomenes
psychologiques qu’il observe toutes les consequences qui en decoulent, et, quoiqu’il choisisse de preference pour objet de ses etudes
des passions extraordinaires, il s’efforce de conserver aux actions
qu’elles produisent l’apparence rigoureuse de la logique.
�78
LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEAW^
Comme beaucoup d’esprits vigoureux, il decouvre
de mal
que de bien dans la nature humaine, il croit surtout que la variety
du mal offre a l’ecrivain des sujets de reflexion plus interessants I et
ce sont les symptomes les plus rares de la depravation sociale qui
attirent le plus son attention. Donnez-lui un scelerat: il l’examinera,
avec le coup d’oeil de 1’anatomiste. Si c’est un homme vulgaire J il
l’abandonnera bientot; mais s’il surprend chez lui des signes de force
et d’intelligence, s’il reconnait dans sa conduite l’indice d’une maladie morale peu connue, il le considere avec joie, comme le naturaliste
qui decouvre une espece nouvelle, il le classe dans sa galerie, et il
observe a la loupe tous les traits de son visage. Les monstres ne lui
deplaisent pas; ils sdnt rares et ils sont forts. C’en est assez pour
piquer sa curiosite : non point qu’il se propose de les rehabiliter
comme on l’a fait si souvent de nos jours; il ne les couronne pas de
fleurs, il ne soutient pas le paradoxe moderne de la superiorite du
crime sur la vertu. On ne trouverait pas, dans tout le theatre anglais du
seizieme siecle, une seule theorie de ce genre. Le mal n’y est jamais
ni deguise sous des couleurs brillantes, ni place au-dessus du bien.
Chaque action y est qualifiee, comme elle merite de l’etre, sans aucune predilection, pour le vice. Jonson n’a done point de sympathie
pour le’s mechants et ne cherche pas a les rendre aimables. Mais il
les peint tels qu’il les a vus ou tels qu’il les conceit, avec une
effrayante vyiteMliait le denombrement exact de tous leurs defauts,
il signale les mobiles caches de leurs actes, et il met en relief]
jusqu’aux inoindres details qui composent I’ensemble de leur physionomie. ■
.
Ges peintures minutieuses de la laideur morale qui rappellent
l’exafflitude des peintres Hamands, sont le triomphe du vieux Ben.
C’est la qu’il excelle. Par la patience., par la puissance de 1’observaJ
tion et par la vigueur du pinceau, il s’eleve quelquefois jusqu’au
genie. S’il vivait aujourd’hui, on le classerait infailliblement parmi
les vealist@s;cax; |n’a peur ni des termes techniques, ni des descrip
tions detaillees, ni. des images ernes, ni des tableaux grossiers. On a
compare recemment, et.pour la premiere fois sans doute, notre
romancier Balzac a Shakspeare. La comparaison manque de justesse. Ce sont au contraire deux esprits tres-difierents. Tandis que.
1’un, quoique doue d’un puissant esprit, se traine peniblement dans
les bas-fonds de la societe, l’autre s’eleve sans cesse, sur des ailes de
flamme, vers des regions plus pures. G’est plutot a Jonson que Balzac
�LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SHAKSPEARE.
7!)
ressemble. Tous deux etudient, avec une egale curiosite, les mala
dies morales de Fame, tous deux s’attachent a F observation des caracteres exceptionnels et pervers, tous deux analysent avec patience et
peignent avec energie ce qu’ils ont vu ou ce qu’ils ont concu. Seulement l’un est un poete qui ecrit fortement sa langue; l’autre un prosateur qui £crit difficilement la sienne.
Balzac a retrouve des types que Jonson avait deja crees. Un des
premiers personnagesque nous rencontrions dans la comedie anglaise
semble appartenir au dix-neuvieme siecle. C’est Fhomme a projets,
theprojector, le fondateur de cent compagnies industrielles qui n’ont
jamais existe, mais qui trouvent des actionnaires, l’inventeur de pro
cedes infaillibles pour s’enrichir qui ne font qu’appauvrir les dupes,
le banquier sans capitaux qui specule sur la sottise et sur la credulite
humaine. De nos jours, il cree la societe des bitumes du Maroc oil il
indique les moyens de faire fortune, en elevant des lapins. Au
seizieme siecle, il se nomme Meercraft; il a la pretention de dessecher tous les marais de FAngleterre, il propose de faire des gants
avec des peaux de chiens, il invente un procede economique pour
fabriquer des bouteilles, il fonde une compagnie pour populariser
dans le royaume l’usage de la fourchette, apportee d’Italie, et il com
pose du vin rouge avec des mures sauvages 1. Les speculateurs des
deux epoques peuvent differer dans leurs inventions. Chacun d’eux
suit le gout du temps et offre au public l’appat qui doit le mieux le
seduire. Mais il y a un principe sur lequel ils sont parfaitement d’ac
cord : c’est que les sots doivent seuls faire les frais de leurs entrepriscs. Leur talent consiste a beaucoup promettre et a ne rien tenir,
a recevoir de l’argent et a ne jamais le rendre.
Meercraft, en habile homme, ne demande jamais rien, mais il se
fait offrir des fonds qu’il acceptc et qu’il garde. Ses dupes lc pressent
de vouloir bien leur faire l’honncur de puiser dans leur bourse. G’est
la le comble de Fart. Obtenir de l’argent, c’est habile. Mais se faire
prier pour en prendre, inspirer assez de confiance pour que le client
vous supplie de vous enrichir, a ses depens, c’est un triomphe. Les
Anglais sont passes maitres dans ce genre de tromperie. G’est chez
eux que la mystification industrielle a du etre inventee. Le pu/f, le
canard sont d’origine britannique. Il parait qu’au seizieme siecle le
mouvement des esprits, l’activite du commerce, la curiosite qui se
I. Tfte Devil is an ass.
�80
LES CONTEMPORAIN’S DE SHAKSPEARE.
portait vers les terres lointaines qu’on venait d’explorer excitaient a
Londres le gout des aventures et provoquaient l’habilete des speculateurs, en allumant les convoitises de la foule. Le theatre signale
plusieurs fois ce travers. Les pieces du Mendiant de cour et des
Antipodes sont dirigees contre les chevaliers d’induslrie. Mais le
Meercraft de Jonson en est le type le plus populaire.
Une des passions que Balzac a le mieux rendues, c’est l’amour de
l’or. Jonson avait concu, avant lui, le caractere de Grandet. Il introduit sur la scene anglaise un vieillard sordide , apre au gain, qui
sacrifie tout, honneur, probite, affections de famille, au desir d’augmenter son revenu. Comme Grandet, ce personnage odieux ne se
nourrit que d’une seule pensee; il n’a qu’un but, c’est de s’enrichir
chaque jour davantage. Il n’y a pas une de ses actions qui soit indifferente ou inutile. Lors meme qu’il cause avec ses voisins ou qu’il
s’assied a la table defamille, son idee fixe le poursuit; il remue des
chiffres dans sa tete, il calcule, il suppute les chances de perte et de
profit, les revenus probables d’une affaire. Il additionne, il multiplie,
il divise; il recommence de memoire et sans relache toutes les opera
tions de l’arithmetique. N’attendez de lui ni un bon mouvement, ni
une parole sortie du coeur,ni une resolution genereuse. Il est sec. La
cupidite a etouffe chez lui tous les sentiments.
Il y a, dans la comedie de Jonson, des situations qui font penser a
des scenes analogues ftEugenie Grandet. Pennyboy, l’usurier
anglais, se fache contre un domestique qui a depense six pence et lui
apprend tout ce que cette petite somme pourrait rapporter dans un
temps determine.
I
I
[
J
- PENNYBOY (au portier de sa maison).
Tu sens le vin, coquin, tu es ivre.
LE PORTIER.
Non, monsieur, nous n’avons bu qu’une pinte, un bonnets voUB
turierlet moi.
PENNYBOY.
Qui l’a payee?
LE PORTIER.
C’est moi qui l’ai offerte.
PENNYBOY.
Comment I et tu as depense six pence! un manant depenser six J
pence, six pence I
�81
LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SIIAKSPEARE.
LE PORTIER.
Une fois dans l’annee, monsieur.
PENNYBOY.
Quand ce serait en sept ans, valet! Sais-tu ce que tu as fait, quelle
depense de capital tu as faite? Il pourrait plaire au ciel (car tu es un
jeune et vigoureux drole) de te laisser vivre encore soixante-dix ans,
jusqu’a ce que tu en aies quatre-vingt-dix, peut-etre cent. Supposons soixante-dix ans. Combicn de fois sept en soixante-dix? Sept
fois dix, c’est la meme chose que dix fois sept. Fais bien attention a
ce que je vais te demontrer sur mes doigts. Six pence, au bout
de sept ans, interet sur interet, en produisent douze : au bout de
sept nouvelles annees, deux shellings; la troisieme periode de sept
ans, quatre shellings; la quatrieme, huit shellings; la cinquieme,
seize; la sixieme, trente-deux; la septieme fois, trois livres sterling
et quatre shellings; la huitieme, six livres et huit shellings; la neuvieme, douze livres seize shellings; et enfin la dixieme, vingt-cinq
livres douze shellings. Voila ce que tu as perdu, par ta debauche,
dans le cas oil tu vivrais encore soixante-dix ans, en depensant six
pence une fois en sept ans. Gaspiller tout cela en un seul jour!
c’est une sommc incalculable. Hors de ma maison, fleau de pro
digalite 1!
Comme l’avare de Balzac, l’usurier de la comedie anglaise affecle
une surdite commode qu’il exagere ou qu’ildiminuea volonte. Vienton lui demander de l’argent, il ferme l’oreille a toutes les sollicita
tions, il n’entend pas un scul mot de ce qu’on lui dit, il a l’ouie si
dure qu’on ne peut pas obtenir qu’il reponde. Lui propose-t-on au
contraire un benefice, il ecoute; quoique vous parliez bas, il n’a pas
perdu une syllabe de ce que vous lui disiez. Jonson a rendu tou
tes ces nuances, dans une scene oil un industriel vient, en style
allegorique, demander au vicux Pennyboy la main de sa pupille
Pecunia, c’est-a-dire la clef de sa cassette. Pennyboy qui feint d’etre
mourant, pour mieux tromper ceux qui le visitent, recoit le pretendant, etendu dans son fauteuil sur lequel il fait semblant d’etre cloue.
Un domestique amene Cymbal, le pretendant.
LE DOMESTIQUE.
Voici ce monsieur.
1. The Staple of news.
Tome III. — 9e Livraisou.
i
C
�«2
LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SHAKSPEAREi
PENNYBOY.
Je lui demande pardon. Je ne puis me lever, malade comme je
le suis.
CYMBAL.
Point d’excuses! monsieur, menagez votre sante; ne vous genez
pas.
I*.
PENNYBOY.
Ce n’est point deE’orgueil de ma part; c’est de la souffrance,de
la souffrance^Voyons, monsieur. <
CYMBAL.
-
. ‘
J
a
Je suis venu pour vous entretenir.
PENNYBOY.
C’est une souffrance pour moi de parler, une douleur mortelle.
Mais je vous entendrai.
CtMBAL.
Vous avez une dame qui demeure avec vous.
PENNYBo|ff
Hein! J’ail’ouie atissi un peu faible.
f
CYMBAL.
Pecunia.
■ ’
PENNYBOY.
De ce cote, elle est tout a fait insuffisante. Continuez.
CYMBAL^*;
Je voudrais l’attirer plus souvent dans Thumble etablissement
dontje suis possesseur,
PENNYBOY.
Jen’entendsabsolument rien. Parlezplushaut.
CYMBAL jr4
Ou, s’il vous convient de la laisser demeurer avec moi, j’ai moitie
des profits a vous offrir. Nous les partagerons.
PENNYBOY. *
Ah! je vous entends mieux maintenant. -Comment sefont cesprofits? Est-ce un commerce sur ou chanceux? Je ne me soucie pas de
courir apres l’inconnu, de me lancer dans la voie du hasard. J’aime
les chemins directs; je suis un homme exact et droit. Maintenant
tous les trafics periclitent: celui de l’argent a perdu 2 o/o. C’etait un
commerce sur, lorsque le siecle etait econome, lorsque les homines I
�LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE.
83
administrant bienleur fortune, veillaient sur les capitaux et bornaient
leurs desirs. Maintenant le desordre public prostitue, dissipe tout en
carrosses, en livrees de gens de pied, en robes de femmes de chambre.
Il faut leur faire des hanches de velours. Que le diable les emporte!
Les moeurs du temps me rendent fou.
(Il prononce ces paroles avec violence et tres-haut.)
CYMBAL.
Vous disiez tout a l’heure que c’etait mortel pour vous de parler.
PENNYBOY.
Oui, mais la colere, une juste colere, comme celle-ci, ranime un
homme qui ne peut supporter de voir la gloutonnerie et l’elegance
des hommes!
(II se leve de son fauteuil.)
Que de feux, que de cuisiniers et de cuisines on pourrait epargner? de combien de velours, de tissus, d’echarpes, de broderies et
de galons on pourrait se passer? Ils convoitent sans cesse des choses
superflues, tandis qu’il y aurait beaucoup plus d’honneur a savoir
se passer du necessaire. Quel besoin a la nature de plats d’argent
ou de vases de nuit d’or? de serviettes parfumees ou d’un nombreux domestique qui la regarde manger? Pauvre et sage, elle n’a
besoin que de manger. La faim n’est pas si ambitieuse. Supposez
que vous soyez l’empereur des plaisirs, le grand dictaleur de la
mode aux yeux de toute l’Europe, que vous etaliez a la vue la
pompe de toutes les cours et de tous les royaumes, pour faire ouvrir
de grands yeux a la foule et vous faire admirer, il n’en faudra pas
moins vous mettre au lit et atteindre le terme que fixe la nature;
alors tout s’evanouit. Votre luxe n’etait que pour la montre, vous
ne le possediez pas. Pendant qu’il se glorifiait lui-meme, il touchait a sa fin.
CYMBAL (4 part).
Cet homme a de vigoureux poumons.
PENNYBOY.
Tout ce superflu semble alors vous appartenir aussi peu que ceux
qui en etaient les spectateurs. Ce qui divertit les homines remplit a
peine l’attente de quelques heures.
CYMBAL (a part).
Il a le monopole du monologue.
,
(Haul-)
Mais, mon cher monsieur, vous parlez toujours.
�LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARES|
84
PENNYBOY (avec colere).
Et pourquoi pas? Ne suis-je pas sous mon propre toit?
CYMBAL.
Mais je suis venu ici pour causer avec vous.
PENNYBOY.
Et si je ne veux pas, moi, causer avec vous, monsieur. Vous avez
ma reponseA Qui vouS a envoye chelclier?
^YfeBA^J'
Personne.
Mais vous etes venu. Eh bien! alors partez1 comme vous etes venu.
PersonneBflvo^srefient. Voufi voire chemin; vous voyez la porte.
cymba^H
Vous etes un coquin.
pennyboy.
41
En verify j&le croisS monsieu^M
y CYMBAL*. ■ I
Un filou, un usurier. t
U.
PENNYBOY .C
Ce sont.les surnoms qu’on me donne.
CYMBAL.
Un] miserable irmon.
PENNYBOY.
Vous allez faire deborder le vase et tout repandre.
CYMBAL.
Chenille, teigne, grosse sangsue, ver immonde.
PENNYBOY,.
Vous perdez encore une fois votre peine, je suis un vase brise qui
ne garde rien. Adieu, mon^her monsieur. *
Cette scene est excellente. La faiblesse et la surdite qu’affecte
11’usurier, am debut de l’entretien,"font ressortir, d’une maniere
piquante, 1’attention avec laquelle il prete l’oreille, des qu’on lui"
parle de benefices, et la colere ad moyen de laquelle il se debarrasse
du solliciteur, quand il a reconnu qu’il n’y avait aucun profit a
tirer de Ium Un trait comniuii a tbu§ ces hommes avides d’argentj
et Jonson l’a bien saisi, c’est le peu de souci qu’ils ont de leur
reputation et le calmOjavec lequel ils ecoutent les injures qu’on,
leur adresse. Peu leur importe tn effet ce que le monde pense d’eux.
�LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SHAKSPEARE.
85
Les hommes sont leur proie; ils savent bien qu’on ne depouille pas
les victimes sans les faire crier; ils supportent les plaintes, les
reproches, les invectives, commo une des necessites de leur metier;
c’est une consolation qu’ils laissent au public, a la condition de ne
rien rabattre de leurs exigences.
II
Pennyboy est un usurier. L’avare est un type analogue, deja
etudie par la comedie latine; Jonson le reprend, avant Moliere et
apres Plaute, on suivant avec liberte et avec originalite les traces de
l’auteur ancien. Il imite, il traduit meme quelques passages de l'Aitlularia; mais il met en oeuvre des elements nouveaux. C’est a Plaute
qu’il a emprunte le premier monologue de l’avare qui commence
ainsi : « Puisse-je vivre un jour seul avec mon or ! Oh! e’est un
doux compagnon, tendre et fidele. Un homme peut s’y fier, tandis
qu’il est trompe par son pere, par son frere, par ses amis, par sa
femme. 0 tresor merveilleux! ce qui rend tous les hommes trompeurs cst fidele en soi* !» Dans les scenes suivantes, tantot il s’ecarte,
tantot il sc rapproche de son modele. Quelquefois, dans ce qu’il imite
ou dans ce qu’il invente, il devance notre grand comique et provoque
une double comparaison. Son avare est un Francais, du nom de
Jaques1, etabli en Italic. Jaques, autrefois intendant du comte de
2
Chamont, lui a soustrait sa fille, encore enfant, et une somme
d’argent considerable qu’il est venu enfouir dans sa nouvelle resi
dence. Il vit miserablement, il est vetu de hailions; on le croit
reduit a une extreme pauvretc. Mais il possede une cassette remplie
d’or qu’il va contempler plusieurs fois par jour et qui lui tient lieu
de tout autre bonheur. Malgre la misere apparente de l’avare, la
beaute de la jeune Rachel, qu’il a enlevee a son pere et qu’on croit
son enfant, excite l’admiration generale. Plusieurs pretendants aspirent a la main de la jeune fille. Christophero, intendant du comte
Farneze, un grand seigneur du voisinage, la dispute au comte Farneze lui-meme, veuf de sa premiere femme; et, sans le savoir, ils
ont tous deux pour rival, outre un cordonnier, le propre fils de
Farneze.
1. The case is altered.
2. Nous conservons 4 dessein forthographe de Jonson.
�86
LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SHAKSPEARE.
Chacun des candidats presente a son tour sa requete a Jaques
et leurs visiles donnent lieu aux scenes les plus plaisantes. L’avare
ne pent crorre a un amour desinteresse; il ne pense pas qu’on
puisse reChercher Rachel pour elle-meme; il soupconne qu’on en
veut a son argent. Aussi est-il assailli de terreurs comiques, des qu’il
apercoit le visage d’un pretendant. Comme tous ceux qui possedent un tresor, il craint qu’on ne le lui prenne, et, avant d’etre puni
par les*evenements, il l’est deja par ses propres angoisses. Il ne quitte
jamais sa maison, sans prevoir tout ce qui peut arriver de malheureux
en son absence, et sans adresser. a sa fille de minutieuses recomman?dations : « Rachel, lui dit-il, je m’en vais.. Enferme-toi, mais retire
la clef, afin que, si quelqu’un regarde par la serrure, il croie qu’il
n’y a personne a la maison.. Si quelque voleur vieni, il essayera probablement de briser la porte, en croyant qu’ilm y a personne; metsioi alors a parler tres-haut, comme s’il y avait d’autres personnes
avec toi. Enleve le feu, eteins le foyer qu’il ne souffle pas plus qu’un
homme mort! Plus nous epargnons, mon enfant, et plus nous
gagnons.»
Il ne reste pas longtemps hors de chez lui. Sa frayeur le ramene
hientat. Quelle n’est pas sa surprise et son inquietude en voyant
sortir de sa maison un homme qu’il ne connait pas. C’est Angelo
Farneze qui vient de faire ses adieux a Rachel; il voudrait l’arreter,
il court, il s’ecrie: « Diable et enter! quel est cet homme ? Un esprit?
Est-ce celui de ma maison quilahante? Encore a .ma porte! 11 a ete a
ma porte, il est entre, entre dans ma chere porte. Plaise aDieuque
mon or soil en surete! »
Il tremble encore lorsque survient Christephera. Nouvelle terreur
■ qui ne lui permet meme pas d’entendre ce qu’onlui demandel
JAQUES.
Merci de moil en voici un autre;! Rachel! ho! Rachel!
’i
CHRISTO PHERO.
Dieu vous protege, honnete pere’!
JAQUES.
Rachel f par Ie ciel , viens ici ! Rachel ! Rachel!
(Il sort precipitamment.)
CHRI STOPHERO (seul).
Au nom du ciel, qu’a-t-il? C’est etrange. Il aime tellement sa
�87
LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE.
fille, que je gage ma vie qu’il a peur que je n’aie profite de son
absence pour lui faire une cour illegitime.
JAQUES (rentre).
(A part.)
Il est en surete1 il est en surete! 11s ne m’ont pas vole mon or.
CHRISTOPHERO.
Ne soyez pas offense, monsieur.
JAQUES (a part).
Monsieur! mon Dieu! monsieur! monsieur! Il m’appelle mon
sieur.
CHRISTOPHERO.
Mon bon pere, ecoutez-moi.
JAQUES.
Vous etes tout a fait le bienvenu, monsieur. Votre Seigneurie
voudrait-elle s’abaisser jusqu’a me parler?
CHRISTOPHERO.
Ce n’est pas s’abaisser, mon pere. Mon intention est de vous faire
un honneur plus grand que celui de vous parler : c’est de devenir
votre fils.
JAQUES (a part).
Son nez a senti mon or; il l’a flaire. Il connait mon or, il sait
le secret de mon tresor.
(Haut.)
Comment savez-vous, monsieur, comment avez-vous devine?...
CHRISTOPHERO.
Quoi, monsieur? que voulez-vous dire?
JAQUES.
Je prie Votre aimable Seigneurie de vouloir bien me dire com
ment vous savez... je veux dire comment je pourrais faire savoir
a Votre Seigneurie que je n’ai rien a donner a ma pauvre fille.
Je n’ai rien. Le ciel, qui est si bon pour chaque homme, ne Test
guere pour moi.
CHRISTOPHERO.
Je pense, mon bon pere, que vous etes tout bonnement pauvre.
JAQUES (a part).
11 pense cela! ficoutons! Il ne pense que cela? Non, il ne pense
pas ainsi; il sait tout, il connait mon tresor.
(Il sort.)
�88
LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE.
CHRISTOPHERO (seul).
Pauvre homme! il est si rempli de joie d’entendre dire que sa
fille peut etre mariee bien au dela de ses esperances, que, si j’en
crois le simple bon sens, c’est l’incertfiude entre la crainte et l’espoir
qui le met ainsi hors de dui-meme.
J A Q UE S (rentrant, a part).
Cependant tout est en surete a l’interieur. N’y a-t-il pcrsonnd
au dehors? Ne brise-t-on pas mes murs?
CHMWOPH®RO.
Que dites-vous, mon pere? Aurai-je votre fille?
JAQUES. '
(
Je n’ai aucune dot a lui donner^
CHRISTOPHERO.
Je n’en attends aucune, mon pere.
JAQUES.
pW k*en- Alors je prie Votre Seigrieurie de ne me faire aucune
question sur ce qu’elledesire. C’est une trop grande faveur pour moi.
CHI®TOPHERO (a part).
Je vais le laisser se remettre un peu maintenant. Cela lui causerait
trop d’emotion, si je lui parlais encore en ce moment.
(II sort.)
JAQUES (seul).
Ahl U est parti! Je voudrais que tous les autres fussent aussi
partis ou morts, afin de pouvoir vivre seul avec mon or cheri.
LE COMTE FARNEZE (entrant, a part).
Void le pauvre vieillard.
JAQUES (apart).
Bifij mon ame, encore un autre”! VientMfflde ce cdte?
FARNEZE (haut).
Ne soyez pas effraye, vieillard; je viens vous apporter de la joie.
JAQUES. .
A moi, ciel!
(A part.)
L’un vient pour me tenir id a causer, pendant que l’autre me vole.
(Il sort.)
tJftFARNEZE <seul).
Il m’a oublie, a coup sur. Que signifie cela? Il craint mon pouvoir
et que, n’ayant plus de femme, je ne lui enleve sa fille pour la des-
�LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SHAKSPEARE.
89
honorer. Celui qui n’a rien sur la terre qu’une pauvre fille peut
avoir cotte sollicitude anxieuse pour la garder.
JAQUES (rentrant, a part).
Et cependant il est en surete. Ils ne songent pas a employer la
force, mais la flatterie et la ruse. Je verrai bien, a sa premiere ques
tion, s’il me croit riche.
(Haut.)
Qui vois-je devant moi, mon bon seigneur?
FARNEZE.
Leve-toi, bon pere. Je ne t’appelle pas ainsi a cause de ton age,
mais parce que je desire vivement devenir ton fils, en m’unissant,
par un mariage honorable, a ta charmante fille.
JAQUES (a part).
Oh! c’est cela, c’est cela. C’est pour mon or.
Cette preoccupation constante de l’avare, cette idee fixe qui le
poursuit, ce besoin qu’il eprouve a chaquc instant de revoir son or,
et de s’assurer qu’on ne le lui a point enleve, tout cela est peint
avec naturel et dans le ton vrai de la comedie. Moliere a repiis et
embelli la fameuse scene de Plautc oil Euclio arrete un homme qu’il
soupconne de l’avoir vole, et le fouille des pieds a la tete. Jonson
l’avait imitee le premier avec bonheur. Son imitation merite d’etre
citee, meme a cote de celle de Moliere.
Jaques s’etait eloigne un instant de sa maison, lorsqu’il rencontre
Juniper, le cordonnier amoureux de Rachel, qui avait essaye de
penetrer dans la maison, pour voir la jeune fille, et qui, en reconnaissant le pere, se sauve a toutes jambes. Jaques le prend pour un
voleur et le saisit avec violence.
JAQUES.
Rachel! au voleur! au voleur! Arrete, scelerat, esclave!
(Il saisit Juniper au collet.)
Rachel, lache mon chien ! Oui, brigand, tu ne peux pas echapper.
JUNIPER.
Je vous en supplie, monsieur.
JAQUES.
Eh bien! Rachel, quand je to le dis! Cache mon chien, lache-le
done, te dis-je.
�LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SHAKSPEARE.'
£0
JUNIPER.
Pour l’amour de Dieu, ecoutez-moi, retenez votre dogue.
’
■*
JAQUES.
Alors rends^moi, Tiens\ rends-moi, esclave.
JUNIPER.
's
Quoi?
l
■;
JAQUES.
Oh! tu voudrais que je te Ie disc, tli le voudrais, n’est-ce pas?
Montre-moi tes mains; qu’as-tu dans-tes mains?
JUNTHER.il
Voici mes mains.
• s'
'
JAQUES.
Arrete. Le bout de tes doiglsesbJl sali par la terre? Non; tu les
as essuyes.
JUNIPER.
Essuyes!
.
JAQUES.
Oui, miserable! Tu es un habile coquin . Ote tes souliers; viens,
que je les voied Donne-moi un couteau, Rachel, que j’ouvre les
semelles!
I ^Juhiper veut s’en- alter.)
Doucemenf, monsieur, vousn’etespas encore parti. Secouez vos
jambes, allons, et vos bras, et faitesvite.
(Il le laehe.)
Demon! pourquoi n’es-tupas^ encore partr? Va-t’en, tourment de
mon ame!J Satan, loin d’icil Pourquoi me ragardes-tu? Pourquoi
restes-tu la? Pourquoi jettes-tu sur la terre des1 regards furtifs? Que
vois-tu la, chien, qu’est-ce qui te faitouvrir de grands yeux? Loin
de ma maison! Rachel, lache le dogue.
Jonson a eu Fheureuse pensee de supprimer le trait de mauvais
gout que Plaute a glisse dans son dialogue, lorsqu’il fait dire a Euclio,
apres avoir visite les deux mains de Strobilu&: Ostende etiam tertiam, montre aussi la troisieme. Mais il ne l’a pas remplace, comme
Moliere, par ce mot charmant: « Les aufresT» qui conserve l’intenlion du poete latin, en sauvant le natural.
Parmi les passages de la piece qui appartiennent en propre a
Jonson et dont Fidee premiere ne lui a point ete fournie par son
modele, il taut citer le poetique monologue de l’avare, lorsque,
�LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE.
91
rempli d’inquietude pour son or, il le deterre et le change de place
afin de le micux cacher. Il lui parle alors avec une tendresse amoureuse dont l’expression, tres-belle en anglais, s’affaiblit malheureusement dans une traduction : « Reste la, ma chere ame! Dors doucement, mon cher enfant! Je ne t’ai pas acquis tout a fait legitimement,
mais enfin je t’ai acquis, et c’est assez. Que toutes les mains qui
s’approchent de toi tombent en pourriture, excepte les miennes!
Que tous les yeux qui te voient soient brutes, excepte les miens!
Que tous ceux qui pensent a toi sentent le poison dans leurs coeurs
amoureux, excepte moi! Je ne te dirai pas adieu, aimable prince,
grand empercur, sans te regarder a chaque minute; roi des rois,
je ne serai pas impoli a ton egard, et je ne te tournerai pas le dos
en m’eloignant de toi; mais je m’en irai a reculons, le visage tourne
vers toi, en te saluant humblement. Il n’y a personne dans la mai
son, personne ne regarde au-dessus de mon mur. Avoir de l’or et
l’avoir en surete, tout est la 1! »
Jaques eprouve le meme malheur qu’Euclio et qu’Harpagon. On
lui derobe sa cassette et sa fille. Il regrette tant la premiere qu’il n’a
pas le temps de songer a la seconde. Mais, comme il les a volees l’une
et l’autre, il n’a pas meme le droit de se plainare, et son dcsespoir
est moins comique que celui de l’avare de Moliere.
Jonson revient volontier: a ce type de l’avare qui offre un eternel
aliment a la comedie. 11 le reprend encore dans une de ses dernieres
pieces2, ou il lui fait dire neltement, sans ambages et sans circonlocutions : « Mon argent, c’est mon sang, mes parents, mes allies; celui
qui ne l’aime pas est denature. » 11 suppose meme que l’avare raisonne philosophiquemeat sur ses sentiments et fait la theorie de sa
passion. « Nous savons tous, dit le vieux Sir Moth, que Fame de
l’homme est infinie dans ses desirs. Celui qui desire la science la
desire infiniment; celui qui aspire a l’honneur y aspire infiniment;
ce ne serait pas une chose difficile, pour un homme qui aime Fargent, de demontrer ct d’avouer qu’il tend a une richesse infinie-. »
III
Mais la puissance d’observation de Jonson se montre surtout dans
ses trois meilleures comedies, dans la Femme silencieuse, dans 1\4^»
1. The case is altered, act. in.
2. The magnetic Lady.
�92
LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE,
chimiste et dans le Renard. La il dc-ssine avec vigueur des caracteres
exceptionnels dont il accuse tous les traits; il met en relief la bizarl
rerie de certaines infirmites morales; il a la penetration du moraliste
et la patience de l’anatomiste arme du scalpel. Il se complait dans
1’inconnu et dans l’extraordinaire. Les hommes qu’il met en scene
appartiennent sans doute a la realite; lui-meme les a peut-etre ren
contres et vus de pres, mais ils ne se confondent pas avec la foule, ils
ne representent pas une classe generale de la sodete; ils vivent dans la
retraite, ou ils nourrissent des vices solitaires et rares, que la curio
site du poete comique decouvre et nous devoile.
Le premier de ces originaux s’appelle Morose, et vient en droite
ligne de 1’antiquite. Jonson l’a pris dans Libanius, pour le transporter
de la dans la Femme silencieuse. C’est un gentilhomme de bonne
maison, qui connait le monde et la cour, mais qui a pris tout a coup
en horreur 1’agitation d’une grande ville, et qui ne veut laisser penetrer jusqu’a lui aucun bruit exterieur. Il a la passion du silence. Les
sourds-muets lui font envie. Les cris d’une femme qui vend dans la
rue du poisson ou des oranges 1’irritent. Il ne souffre dans son voisinage ni armuriers, ni serruriers, ni ouvriers bruyants d’aucune sorte.
Il demeure, avec intention, dans une ruelie si etroite que ni voitures,
ni chaises a porteurs ne peuvent la traverser. Pour echapper a la sonnerie des cloches qui lui dechirent le tympan, il s’enferme dans un
appartement a doubles fenetres et a doubles portes constamment fermees, ou il vit a la clarte d’une lampe. Si, malgre toutes ces precau
tions, il est derange, malheur a ceux qui le derangent! Il a fait crever
un tambour qu’on s’est permis de battre devant sa porte. Il a renvove
un de ses domestiques, parce qu’il a entendu craquer ses souliers
dans l’escalier.
Jonson, qui excelle a mettre avec naturel les ridicules en scene,
nous introduit tout de suite au coeur du sujet, dans la maison de
Morose. Le maniaque donne ses ordres a un laquais et laisse voir du
premier coup son caractere. Toutes les paroles lui sont odieuses,
excepte les siennes. « N’est-il pas possible, dit-il a son serviteur, que
tu me repondes par signes et que je te comprenne? Ne parle pas,
quoique je t’interroge. (Le domestique repond par signes.) As-tu
enleve la sonnette de la porte exterieure qui donne sur la rue? As-tu
rembourre 1’exterieur de la porte, afin que, si les passants frappent
avec leurs dagues ou avec leurs briquets, ils ne puissent faire aucun
bruit? » A ces questions multipliees, le domestique ne doit repondre
�LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE.
93
que par des mouvements de jambes ou de bras. Son maitre lui demande l’heure, il l’indique avec ses doigts. Morose voudrait etre
lure: « Ileureux Tures! s’ecrie-t-il; ils sont servis par des muels; a
la guerre, les ordres leur sont donnes sans bruit par des signaux. »
Le comble de la l'clicite, suivant lui, c’est de ne jamais entendre le
son de la voix humaine.
Mais ses reves ne se realisent point, et ce qu’il y a de plus plaisant
dans cette comedie, ce soul les mesaventures qui viennent a chaque
instant troubler son repos. Morose a un neveu, sir Dauphine, pour
lequel il n’eprouve aucune affection, et qu’il ne serait pas faclie de
desheriter en se mariant; il cherche done une femme. Mais pendant
qu il rumine ce projet, un ami de Dauphine, Trucwit, le personnage le plus spirituel de la piece, juge a propos, pour sauver le
neveu, de faire irruption chez l’oncle et de l’epouvanter sur les suites
probables de son mariage. Avcc l’entree en scene de Trucwit, com
mence le supplice de Morose. Pendant que celui-ci s’entoure des pre
cautions les plus raffinees, pour se preserver du bruit exterieur, tout
a coup il entend retentir a ses oreilles le son du cor et ouvrir avec
fracas la porte de sa chambre. C’est Trucwit qui se presente sur le
seuil.
TKUEWIT ou M. DELESPRIT.
Votre nom n’est-il pas Morose?
(A part.)
Muels comme des poissous, tous Pvthagoriciens! C’est etrangc.
(Haut.)
Que dites-vous, monsieur? Rien ! Est-ce qu’Harpocrate est venu ici,
avec son doigt sur sa bouche? Vous voulez vous marier, monsieur,
vous marier! Vos amis s’en etonnent, monsieur, lorsque vous avez si
pres de vous la Tamise pour vous y noyer si gentiment, ou le pout
de Londres, d’oii un beau saut vous precipiterait dans le courant, ou
un dome comme celui de Saint-Paul, ou, si vous aimez mieux rester
pres de la maison et aller plus vite en besogne, vous avez une excellente fenetre qui donne sur la rue et a cette fenetre une espagnolette :
voici, dans ce cas, un baudrier
(11 montre le baudrier auquel son cor est suspendu.)
quo vos amis vous envoient, et ils vous engagent a passer plutot votre
tete dans ce noeud que dans celui du mariage. Ou bien prencz du
sublime et sortez de ce monde, comme un rat : tout, en un mot,
�94
LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SHAKSPEARE.
plutot que de suivre ce lutin d’Hymenee. Helas! monsieur, pouvezvous penser que vous trouverez une femme pure dans ce temps,1
maintenant qu’il y a tant de masques, de pieces, de preches puritains et d’autres spectacles etranges.a voir chaque jour, en particulier
et en public?
MOROSE (qui a donne pendant tout le temps des signes d’impatience et de colere).
Qu’ai-je fait, monsieur,pour meriter ce teaitement ?
TRUEWIT (continuant, sans paraitre s’apercevoir de l’interruption).
Si elle est riche et que vous .epousiez sadot st mon pas elle-meme,
elle regnera dans vote® maison aussi imperieusement qu’une veuve.
Si elle est noble, tous ses parents vous tyranniseront. Si elle est
leconde^elle sera aussi orgueilleuse'ique Mai et aussi capricieuse
qu’Avril; elle aurases medecinspses sages-femmes, ses nourrices et
ses envies a chaque instant du jour. Si elle est instruite, on n’aura
jamais vu pareil perroquettout votre patrimoine sera insuffisant,
pour les»h6tes qu’elle invitera, afinde l’entendre parler grec et latin.
Si elle est puritaine, il vous faudra feter tous les freres silencieux,
au mojns une fois tous les trois jours, saluer les sceurs, entretenir
ioute la famille et entendre des exercices ide longue haleine, des
chants et des preches : le tout pour plaire a votre femme, zelee
matrone, qui, pour la sainte cause, vous trompera bel et bien?.
Morose voudrait, a chaque instant, interrompre le discours de
Truewit. Lui, qui ne peut supporter le son d’une voix humaine, il
gemit .d’etre oblige'Id’ecouter un^ si longto et si bruyante tirade.
A la fin de la scene,jsjl colere touche a 1’exasp eration. Il soupconne
Truewit d’etre d’agent secret de son neveu, et, plus on s’oppose a son
mariage, plus il est presse de de conclure. Seulemcnt il cherche une
perle difficile a trouver, une femme sileudouse^ill faut que la compagne.de .sa vie partage ses gouts et sache setaire. Il croit avoir
trouve cette nouvelle merveille du monde, par ibentremise du barbier
Cutbeard (Coupe-barbe^, son confident, un des ancetres de Figaro. On
lui amene en effet une jeune fille timide,- d-un exterieur simple et
modeste, a laquelle il fait subir un interrogatoire minutieux, afin de
s’assurer qu’elle possede bien toutes les qualites qu’il desire. Elle se
tient devant lui rougissant etamuette : « Vous pouvez parler, lui dit-il
d’un ton encourageant, quoique ni mon barbier ni mon domestique ne
1. Le discours de Truewit est imitd de la sixitoe satire de JuviSnal.
�«
LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE.
95
le puissent; car, de tous les sons, il n’y a que la douce voix d’une belle
femme qui convienne a la mesure de mes oreilles.» Epicoene (c’est le
nom de la jeune personne) repond avec modestie, en peu de mots et
d’une voix si basse qu’on entend a peine les paroles qui sortent de ses
levres. Morose est oblige de lui faire repeter ses reponses pour les
comprendre, et il s’en felicite; car, lorsqu’il ne voudra pas les
ecouter, il le pourra facilement.
Apres cet aimable interrogatoire, il fait la le?on a sa future; il lui
donne des instructions detaillees sur le genre de vie qu’elle doit mener
et sur les sacrifices qu’il attend d’elle. Il ne pretend point qu’elle soit
etrangere au monde; il serait fache qu’elle ne connut pas les manieres
de la cour. La femme d’un gentilhomme doit etre digne du rang
qu’occupe son mari. Il est meme convenable qu’elle ait de l’esprit.
Mais ces qualites n’ont pas besoin de se montrer; il suffit qu’elles
existent. C’est assez pour la satisfaction de Morose. Il desire que la
compagne de sa vie ensevelisse dans un profond silence les dons bril
lants qu’elle a refus du ciel, la grace, la finesse et 1’elegance. A toutes
ces propositions, Epicoene ne repond que par un consentement
exprime a demi-voix, en phrases courtes et soumises : « Comme il
vous plaira, dit-elle. Je m’en rapporte a vous. » Cette docilite de bon
augure transporte de joie le vieux celibataire, qui hate les preparatifs
de son mariage. 11 est vrai qu’Epictme est pauvre; mais son silence
vaut une fortune. D’ailleurs, comme elle devra tout a son mari, elle
n’en sera que plus aimablc et plus obeissante. Morose envoie chercher
sur-le-champ un pasteur pour celebrer son union, mais un pasteur bien
choisi, expeditif et muet, un ministre qui ne s’avise pas de precher
pour montrer son eloquence, et qui sache marier les gens en silence.
L’infatigable Figaro lui amene un homme selon son coeur, un honnete
serviteur de Dieu qui, pour gagner son argent, fait semblant d’etre
enrhume et ne prononce pas une seule parole intelligible. Morose est.
si content de lui qu’il le paye genereusement. Mais, dans l’elan de sa
reconnaissance, le ministre oublie son role et se met a parler. Alors le
nouveau marie entre en fureur, veut lui reprendre sa gratification, et
le chasse de sa presence en l’accablant d’injures. Ce trait de moeurs,
si bien amene par le poete, provoque une scene qui continue la serie
des mesaventures de Morose. En entendant chasser l’homme d’eglise, Epicoene, qui jusque-la a garde, avec affectation, un silence
.modeste, laisse eclater son veritable caractere.
�96
LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEAREM
EPICCENE.
Fi! monsieur Morose, pouvez-vous user d’une telle violence visa-vis d’un homme d’eglise?
MOROSE.
Comment?
JBPICOEJJ^, .
.
Il ne conviendrait ni a votre gravitemi a ,1’education que vous vous
vantez d’avoir recue a 1a- cour, de faire un tel affront a un porteur
d’eau ou meme a une creature, plus grossiere, encore bien moins a
un homme qui porte cet honnete costume.
MOROSE.
Vous pouvez done parler?
'
jepiccene.
Oui, monsieur.
I
I
-.14 ..WfeO
: , :
rad.4
" E'!
.1*
z>
MOROSE.
Parler haut, j’entends.
r
fWccENE.
Oui, monsieur. Croyez-vous done avoir epouse une statue ou une
simple marionnette, une de ces poupees franchises dont les yeux tourJ
nent avec un fil, ou quelque innoceiite sortie Me l’hopital des fous,
qui se tiendrait, comme cela, les mains croisees et la Louche en
coeu^occupee a vous contempler?
. •
MOROSE.'
awp
0 immodestie Tune femme pour tout de bon!
Morose reste ebahi de cette metamorphose et s’arrache les cheveux
de desespoir. Il voit sa femme,J^i humble tout a l’heure, se trans
former tout a coup en une maitresse de maison defeidee et imperieuse,
donner partour des ordres et faire retentir Tappartement des eclats
bruyants de’sa voW. « Elle me regente deja, s’ecrie-t-il. J’ai epouse
une Penthesdee, une Semiramis, vendu ma liberte a une quenouille. Pour comble de malheur, survient Truewit qui a appris
jle mariage et qui yeut feliciter le nouvel epoux du choix qu’il a fait.
(Ses felicitations ironiques retournent le poignard dans le cceur de
Morose : « J ’admire, lui dit-ilf Votre resolution. Malgre les dangers
que j’enumerais devant vous, comme un oisea'u de nuit, vous avez
voulu poursuivre et rester vous-meme. Cela montre que vous etes un
homme constant dans vos projets et invariable dans vos decisions,
�LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SHAKSPEARE.
97
que des cris de mauvais augure no peuvent ebranler. » L’ironie est
excellente et la situation vraiment comique.
Les malheurs de Morose se succedent sans interruption. Depuis
qu’il est marie, il n’a plus un instant de repos. Tantot ce sont des
precieuses ridicules qui viennent complimenter sa femme, tantot
des courtisans qui penetrent chez lui sous pretexte de le feliciter,
mais pour faire la cour a Epicoene. On finit meme par lui amener des musiciens, pour faire danser la compagnie. « La mer fond
sur moi, s’ecrie-t-il; c’est un nouveau flot, une veritable inondation. Je sens comme un tremblement de terre dans mon for interieur. »
Au milieu de ses lamentations, Truewit le poursuit partout,
comme son mauvais genie, en ayant l’air de compatir a son malheur
pour mieux se moquer de lui. « Patience, lui dit-il, ce n’est qu’un
jour a passer. » On sait que ccttc reflexion a la propriety de mettre
en fureur les gens qui s’impatientcnt. Morose s’emporte contre le
barbier qui lui a procure une femme; Truewit abondc dans son sens,
se fait lecho de sa colere et se facbe encore plus que lui. Dans son
emportement ironique, il finit meme par crier si haut que Morose en
est tout etourdi. « J’aimerais mieux lui pardonner, s’ecrie le malheureux mari a bout de patience, que d’en entendre davantage. »
De quelque cote que le vieillard se tourne, il ne voit que des sujets
de chagrin, et, pour echapper a tout le bruit qui se fait autour de lui,
il en est reduit a s’enveloppcr la tete de bonnets de nuit et a se refugier au sommet de la maison, aussi haut qu’il peut monter. Cette
retraite forcee ne le soulage neanmoinsque pendant quclques heures.
Ce n’est pas la un remede definitif. Tant que sa femme restera aupresde lui, il sera expose aux memes desagrements. Il songe alors, en
dernierc analyse, a invoquer la loi pour se separer d’elle; un divorce
le mettra a l’abri de tous les inconvcnients qui resultent pour lui da
mariage. Il s’adresse pour cela aux juges ordinaires. Mais il n’a pas
prevu le nouveau malheur qui l’attendait. A peine a-t-il mis le pied
dans le tribunal qu’il est etourdi par les cris des avocats, par les
interpellations du president, par le glapissement des huissiers et par
' les discussions tumultueuses qui s’elevent entre les plaideurs. Scs
oreilles sont dechirees par des sons discordants. Il ne peut y resister
et il prend la fuite. En comparaison de ce tapage, sa maison, meme
avec sa femme, lui parait un asile aussi calme, aussi silencieux que
l’heure de minuit. Il ne renonce ccpendant point a son idee; il pourTome III. —9e Livraison.
7
�98
LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SHAKSPEARE.
suit sa demande en nullite de manage, et il accepte avec empressement la proposition qu’on lui fait d’amener chez lui deux theologiens
qui lui donneront sur le divorce un avis motive.
Cette pretendue consultation n’est qu’une nouvelle mystification
preparee par I’infatigable Truewit. Celui-ci deguise le capitaine
Otter et le Barbier Cutbeard, Pun en pastcur, l’autre en docteur en
droit canon, leur donne a chacun des instructions precises et les pre
sente a Morose comme deux oracles de la science. Leur conference n’a
d’autre but que d’infliger an vieillard un supplice d’un nouveau
genre et de le mettre a la merci de son neveu.
. u... ,
MOROSE.
Sbnt-ce la les deux savants ?
,'G
:: r
TRUEWIT.
Oui, monsieur. Vous plait-il de lbs saluer?
MOROSE.
Les saluer! J’aimerais mieux faire n’importe quoi que de perdte
ainsi mon-temps sans profit. Je.m’etonne que ces formules banales:
« Dieu soit avec vous, » « Vous etcs le bienvenu,)) soient entrees
dans nos moeurs, ou bien encore qu’on dise : « Je suis heureux de
vous voir. » Je ne vois pasTavantage qu’on peut tirer de ces paroles.
Celui dont les affaires sont tristes et penibles se trouve-t-il mieux,
lorsqu’il entend ces salutations ?
TRUEWIT.
Cela est vrai, monsieur. Allons done au fait, monsieur le docteur
et monsieur le ministre, je vous ai suffisamment instruits de l’affaire
pour laquelle vpus etes venus ici et vous n’avez pas besoin, je le sais,
de nouveaux renseignements sur l’etat de la question. Voici le gentilhomme qui attend votre decision et, par consequent, quand il vous
plaira-, commence/.
OTTER.
A vous, docteur.
CUTBEARD.
A vous, mon bon ministre.
OTTER.
Je voudrais entendre le droit canon parler le premier.
CUTBEARD.
Il doit ceder la place a la theologie positive.
•' »
�LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE.
99
MOROSE.
Mes chers messieurs, ne me jetez pas dans les details. Que vos
secours m’arrivent rapidement, quels qu’ils soient! Soyez prompts a
m’apporter la paix, si je puis l’esperer. Je n’aime ni vos disputes, ni
vos tumultes judiciaires et, pour que cola ne vous paraisse pas etrange,
je vais vous dire : Mon pere, en m’elevant, avait l’habitude de m’engager a concentrer les forces de mon esprit, a ne pas les laisser se
disperser lachement. Il me recommandait d’examiner les choses qui
etaient necessaires a ma conduite dans la vie et celles qui ne l’etaient
pas, d’embrasser les unes et d’eviter les autres, en un mot, de rechercher le repos et de fuir l'agitation : ce qui est devenu pour moi une
seconde nature. Aussi ne vais-je ni a vos debats publics, ni dans les
lieux oil vous faites du bruit; non que je neglige ce qui se fait pour
la dignite de l’Etat, mais simplement afin d’eviter les clameurs et les
impertinences des orateurs qui ne savent pas garder le silence *.
TRUEWIT.
Bien. Mon bon docteur, voulez-vous rompre la glace? Monsieur
le ministre suivra.
CUTBEARD.
Monsieur, quoique indigne et plus faible que mon confrere, j’aurai
la presomption...
OTTER.
Ce n’est pas une presomption, domine doctor.
MOROSE.
Encore I
CUTBEARD.
Vous demandez pour combien de motifs un homme peut obtenir
divortium legitimum, un divorce legal. D’abord, il faut que je vous
fasse comprendre le sens du mot divorce, a divertendo.
MOROSE.
Pas de discussions sur les mots, bon docteur. A la question et
brievement!
CUTBEARD.
Je reponds alors que la loi canonique n’accorde le divorce que
dans un petit nombre de cas et que le principal cst le cas commun,
le cas d’adultere. Mais il y a duodecim impedimenta, douze empe1. Passage traduit de Libanius.
�100
LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SHAKSPEARE.
chements, comme nous les appelons, qui tous peuvent, non pas Jmmere contractum, mais irritum reddere matrimonium, comme
nous disons en droit canon, non pas briser le lien, mais le rendre nul.
MOROSE.
Je vous avais compris, mon bon monsieur. Epargnez-moi l’impertinence de la traduction.
OTTER.
Il ne peut pas trop eclaircir ce point, monsieur, avec votre per
mission.
MOROSE.
Encore!
•
’
TRUEWIT.
'
Oh! vous devez, monsieur, accorder cette liberte a des savants.
Voyons vos empechements, docteur.
CUTBEARD.
Le premier est impedimentum moris.
OTTER.
Dont il y a plusieurs especes.
-
CUTBEARD.
Oui, comme, par exemple, error personae,
OTTER.
Si vous vous mariez a une personne, en la prenant pour une
autre.
CUTBEARD.
Puis, error fortunes,
OTTER.
Si c’est une mendiante et que vous la croyiez riche.
CUTBEARD.
Puis, error qualitatis.
OTTER.
Si vous decouvrez qu’elle est opiniatre et entetee, apres avoir cru
qu’elle etait docile.
MOROSE.
Comment ? Est-ce la un empechement legal ?
OTTER.
Oui, ante copulam, mais non pas post copulam, monsieur.
�LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE.
<01
CUTBEARD.
Monsieur le ministre a raison. Necpost nuptiarum benedictionem.
Celanepeut cpiirrita reddere sponsalia, qu’annuler les fiancailles.
Apres le mariage, ce n’est plus un obstacle.
TRUEWIT.
Helas! monsieur, quelle chute tout d’un coup dans nos esperances!
CUTBEARD.
Apres cola, vient la conditio : si vous la croyiez libre et qu’elle
soit rcconnue esclave; voila un empechement d’etat et de condition.
OTTER.
Oui. Mais, docteur, ces servitudes sont maintenant sublatce, parmi
nous autres chretiens.
CUTBEARD.
Avec votre permission, monsieur le ministre.
OTTER.
Permcttez, monsieur le doctcur.
MOROSE.
Ah! messieurs, ne vous querellez pas surce sujet. Ce cas ne me
concerne point. Passons au troisieme empechement.
CUTBEARD.
Bien; le troisieme est le votum : si l’un des deux conjoints a fait
voeu de chastete. Mais cette coutume, comme monsieur le ministre
l’a dit de I’autre, a maintenant disparu parmi nous, grace a la disci
pline. Le quatrieme est la cognatio : lorsque les personnes sont
parentes au degre defendu.
OTTER.
Oui. Connaissez-vous les degres dcfcndus, monsieur?
MOROSE.
Non, et je ne m’en inquiete guere. Ils ne me sont d’aucun secours
dans la question, j’en suis sur.
CUTBEARD.
Mais il y a une partie de cet empechement qui peut vous servir:
c’est la cognatio spirituals. Si vous etes son parrain, monsieur,
alors ce mariage est incestueux.
OTTER.
Ce commentaire est absurde et superstitieux, monsieur le docteur.
Je ne puis le supporter. Ne sommes-nous pas tous freres et soeurs
�102
LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SHAKSPEARE,
et bien plus parents, par consequent, que les parrains et les filleuls?
MOROSE.
Malheur a moi! Pour terminer la controverse, je n’ai jamais ete
parrain, je n’ai jamais ete .parrain de-ma vie. Passons a l’empqchement suivant.
CUTBEARD.
Le cinquieme, c’est crimen gaulterii, le cas que nous connaissons J
Le sixieme,*, c’est cultus dispuritas,, difference de religion. L’avezvous examinee, pour savoir de quelle religion elle est?
-MOROSE.
Non. J’aimerais mieux qu’elle ne fut d’aucune que de m’imposer
cet ennui.
OTTER.
.
Mais vous pouvezle faire faire pour vous.
’
;
1
x
MOROSE.
Du tout, monsieur. Passons au reste. Arriverez-vous jamais a la
fin, croyez-vous?
TRUEWIT.
Oui, il en a fait la moitie, monsieur. Voyons le reste. Soyez patient
et attendez, monsieur.
.
‘
CUTBEARD.
Le septieme, 'c’^t l’emp^chemeirt pour cause de
: s’il y a eu
Miitrftiffte etviolence?'- *
MOROSE.
Oh! non, cela est trop volontairede ma part, trop volontaire.^
CUTBEARD.
Le huitieme, c’est l’empechement pour cause ft ordo : si jamais
elle a repu tes ordres-sacres.
OTTERl
Ceci est trop superstitieux.
MOROSE.
Ce n’est pas notte affaire/monsieur le ministre. Je voudrais qu’elle
voulut encore alter dans un convent.
CUTbEArd.
Le neuvieme e^t le ligamensi vouS etiez engage, monsieur, a
quelque autre auparatant.
�103
LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE.
MOROSE.
Je me suis fourre trop tot dans ces chaines.
CUTBEARD.
Le dixieme, c’est lc cas Aepublica honestas, c’est-a-dire inchoata
qucedam affinitas.
OTTER.
Oui, ou affinitas orta ex sponsalibus, et ce n’est qu’un leve impedimentum.
MOROSE.
Dans tout cela je ne sens pas le moindre souffle d’air bienfaisant
pour moi.
CUTBEARD.
Le onzieme, c’est affinitas ex fornicatione.
OTTER.
Qui n’est pas moins vera affinitas que l’autre, monsieur le
docteur.
CUTBEARD.
C’est vrai, quae oritur ex legit imo matrimonio.
OTTER.
Vous avez raison, venerable docteur, et nascitur ex eo quod per
conjugium dual personae efficiuntur una caro.
TRUEWIT.
lie! les voila maintenant qui commencent.
CUTBEARD.
Je vous comprends, monsieur le ministre; itaper fornicationem
deque est verus pater, qui sic generat... .
OTTER.
Et vere filius qui sic generatur.
MOROSE.
•
Que me fait tout cela?
CLERIMONT.
Maintenant cela s’echauffe.
CUTBEARD.
Le douzieme et dernier, c’est si forte nequibis...
OTTER.
Oui, c’est la un zmpezZz’men/wm gravissimum. Celui-la annule et
efface tout. Si vous avez une manifestam frigiditatem, cela va bien,
monsieur.
�■104
LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE.
TRUEWIT.
Eh bien! voila un secours qui vous arrive a la fin, monsieur. Confessez seulement que vous etes impuissant et elle demandera ellememe le divorce, la premiere.
OTTER.
Oui, ou bien s’il y a un cas de morbus perpetuus et insanabilis\
de paralysis, d’elephantiasis ow quelque chose de semblable.
DAUPHINE.
Oh! mais la frigiditas est le meilleur moyen, messieurs.
OTTER.
Vous dites vrai, monsieur, et comme le dit le droit canon, i
docteur...
CUTBEARD.
Je vous comprends, monsieur.
CL^RIMONT.
Avant qu’il ait parle.
OTTER.
De meme qu’un garcon ou’ un enfant qui n’a pas l’age n’est pas
propre au mariage, parce qu’il ne peut reddere debitum, ainsi vous
autres omnipotentes...
TRUEWIT (bas a Otter).
Vous autres impotentes, animal!
OTTER.
Impotentes, je voulais dire, sont minima apti ad contrahenda
jmatrimonium.
TRUEWIT (bas a Otter).
Matrimonium! Tu vas nous donner du latin bien peu matrimo
nial. Matrimonia, et va te faire pendre.
DAUPHINE (bas a Truewit).
1 „
Vous troublez leurs idees, mon cher.
•
CUTBEARD.
Mais il y a un doute a elever sur le cas dont il s’agit, monsieur 9
ministre; post matrimonium, celui qui est frigiditate prc/editus,
me comprenez-vous, monsieur?
OTTER.
Tres-bien, monsieur.
CUTBEARD.
U Celui qui ne peut uti uxore pro uxore peut habere earn pro
�LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SHAKSPEARE.
105
OTTER.
Absurde, absurde, absurde et propos de pur apostat!
CUTBEARD.
Vous me pardonnerez, monsieur le ministre, je puis le prouver.
OTTER.
Vous pouvez prouver le desir que cela soit, monsieur le docteur,
mais rien de plus. Est-ce que le vers de votre propre droit canon ne
dit pas :
Haec socianda vetant connubia, facta retractant.
CUTBEARD.
Je vous l’accorde; mais comment peuvent-ils retractare, monsieur
le ministre?
MOROSE.
Oh! c’est la ce que je craignais!
OTTER.
In (sternum, monsieur.
CUTBEARD.
C’est faux, au point de vue divin, avec votre permission.
OTTER.
Ce qui est faux, au point de vue humain, c’est de parler ainsi.
N’est-il pas prorsus inutilis ad thorum? Peut-il preestere fidem
datum ? Je voudrais bien le savoir.
CUTBEARD.
Oui, s’il peut convalere.
OTTER.
Il ne peut convalere. C’est impossible.
TRUEWIT (a Morose, qui donne des signes d'impatience et de distraction).
Monsieur, faites attention a ce que disent ces savants hommes.
Autrement ils croiraient que vous les negligez.
CUTBEARD.
Ou bien s’il lui arrive de se slmulare lui-meme frigidum, odio
uxoris, ou par quelque motif analogue.
OTTER.
Je dis qu’en ce cas il cst adulter manifestus.
DAUPHINE.
Par ma foi, ils disculent vraiment avec beaucoup de science.
�106
LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE.
OTTER.
Et prostitutor uxoris : cela est positif.
MOROSE (bas a Truewit).
Mon bon monsieur, laissez-moi m’esquiver.
TRUEWIT.
Vous ne voudriez pas me faire cet affront, monsieur.
OTTER,
Et, par consequent, s’il est manifeste frigidus...
CUTBEARD.
Oui, s’il esl manifeste frigidus, je vous accorde.....
OTTER.
Eh bien! c’etait la ma conclusion.
^UTBEARD.
Et la mienne aussi.
TRUEWIT (a Morose).
£coutez la conclusion, monsieur.
OTTER.
,
s.
Alors, frigiditatis causd.....
CUTBEARD.
Oui, causd frigiditatis......
MOROSE.
0 mes oreilles ■!
OTTER.
Elle peut obtenir libellum divortii coritre vous.'
CUTBEARD.
Oui, elle obtiendra certainement libellum divortii.
MOROSE.
£chos, epargnez-moi!
OTTER?
Si vous avouez que cela est-il’
CUTBEARD.
Ce que je ferais, monsieur..."
MOROSE.
Je ferai tout ce qu’on voudra.
OTTER.
Et si vous levez mes scrupules, in faro conscientiw.,,
CUTBEARD.
Si vous etes reellement depourvu...
�LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SHAKSPEARE.
107
MOROSE.
Encore!
OTTER.
Exercendi potestate.
Dans la suite de la scene, Morose apprend que le dernier expedient
qu’on lui propose n’est meme pas bon, car il devait etre employe
avant le mariage. Apres avoir ete assourdi par cette bruyante confe
rence, sans decouvrir un seul moyen de salut, il ne sait plus que
devenir. Quoi qu’il fasse, il est condamne a garder sa femme. C’est
un grand mal et, ce qui est pis encore, un mal qui parait sans rcmede.
C’est a cette extremite que son neveu Dauphine voulait le reduire.
Quand 1’heritier disgracie voit le vieillard bien convaincu de son impuissance et desole de ne pouvoir rompre son mariage, il se presente
comme le Deus ex machina de la tragedie mythologique; il offre un
remede inespere et infaillible, mais a une condition, c’est que Morose
lui assurera la moitie de sa fortune, de son vivant, et le reste apres
sa mort. Puis, quand I’acte de donation a ete signe, il declare qu’Epicoene est un homme.
La mystification de Morose a ete complete. Tous ses soucis lui sont
venus de cette erreur. Voila une lepon qui ne le guerira peut-etre pas
de sa passion pour le silence, mais qui le guerira a coup sur de ses
velleites matrimoniales. La morale de la comedie n’est pas claire,
car elle donne la victoire au trompeur. Mais, si elle n’a voulu que
mettre en relief, d’une facon plaisante, les travcrs d’un caractere
exceptionnel, elle y reussit. Elie nous apprend a quels ridicules et a
quels mecomptes s’expose un homme, meme intelligent, lorsque, avec
une manie aussi bizarre et aussi prononcee que cclle de Morose, il a
la pretention de rentrer par le mariage dans la loi commune et de
suivre le voeu de la nature, tout en conservant des gouts qui le contredisent. Sa conduite ne merite pas un chatiment severe; mais il est
juste qu’elle soit livree a la moquerie, et c’est la seule punition que
Jonson lui inflige. Le fond de cette comedie est essentiellement plaisant; elle est surtout remarquable par l’abondance des situations
comiques et par la verve du dialogue.
I
IV
Jonson s’eleve plus haut dans X Alcliimiste et dans le Renard. La
il aborde des peintures de moeurs plus fortes et des caracteres plus
�408
LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE; I
puissants. Il sait encore nous faire rire quelquefois, comme dans la
Femme silencieuse; mais il ajoute a la gaiete 1’expression plus
serieuse de l’indignation et du mepris. L’Alchimiste et le Renardl
n’ont pas des ridicules, comme Morose, mais des vices qui, en e^Kffl
tant notre hilarite aux depens de leurs dupes, provoquent aussi de
notre part une protestation morale contre leur sceleratesse.
Le titre de la comedie de I’Alchimiste paraitrait suranne de :nos
jours. En 1610, en Angleterre, il etait plein d’a-propos. L’alchimie
n’etait point, comme aujourd’hui, demasquee par le ridicule; on y
croyait generalement. Le peuple surtout allait consulter ceux qui en
faisaient profession, et leur attribuait sans hesitation un pouvoir surnaturel. Les classes elevees n’echappaient point a cette superstition.
La loi portait des peines contre les sorciers, et les cruelles condamnations dont ils etaient l’objet revelaient toute la terreur qu’inspiraient
a la sddiete leurs pratiques menteuses. Il 'etait defendu de prononcer
certaines expressions cabalistiques auxquelles on accordait une grande
influence sur les evenements de la vie humaine. Celui qui avait
tourrie soil chapeau trois fois et crie buz, avec l’intention d’oter la
vie a un homme, etait puni de mort, comme s’il eut fait une
tentative reelle d’assassinat. La trente-troisieme annee du regne
d’Henri VIII’ l’exercice de l’alchimie avait ete prohibe et assimile
au crime de haute trahison. Jacques Ier, prince superstitieux, ecrivait
unlivre contre les alchimistes, et, pour corroborer sesarguments, il
faisait bruler tous ceux qui tombaient en son pouvoir.
Cette severite etait un acte de faiblesse qui laissait croire a un dan
ger chimerique. Les sorciers ne meritaient ni les honneurs de l’argumentation ni ceux du martyre; en voulant a tout prix les convaincre
ou les punir, on leur attribuait une importance dont ils n’etaient pas
dignes. C’etait le mepris public et non la dialectique ou la loi qui
devait faire justice de leurs machinations. Jonson, dans sa comedie,
leur porta un coup plus terrible que tous les edits royaux sur la sorcellerie'; il les livra au ridicule.
Il s’adresse a tous les bourgeois de Londres qui ont encore la fai
blesse de consulter les charlatans, qui vont lire leurs destinees devant
le miroir magique, et il les introduit dans le laboratoire de cds alchi
mistes qu’ils croient doues d’un pouvoir surnaturel. La il decrit les
secrets du metier, les procedes dont se servent les habiles pour tromper les simples, les artifices qui font tant de dupes et qui ne reussissent que grace a la credulite publique. La conclusion de sa piece
�LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SHAKSPEARE.
109
est claire : « Voyez et instruisez-vous, dit-il au peuple. Voila les
hommes que vous visitez et dont vous achetez les consultations a
prix d’or. Ils n’ont pas d’autre puissance que celle que votre sottise
leur donne. Ils vivent de vous, et le jour oil vous leur retirerez
votre confiance, leur pretendue science s’evanouira comme un
songe. »
Pour rendre la lefon plus frappante, Jonson peint l’alchimiste
d’apres nature, tel qu’on le pouvait voir encore a Londres au com
mencement du dix-scptieme siecle. D’ordinairece personnage mysterieux n’exerfait pas soul sa profession ; il lui fallait des associes et
des comperes qui l’aidassent a jouer son role. La consultation du
miroir magique, la plus repandue et la plus a la mode alors, exigeait
d’abord la presence d’une femme; car ce n’etait pas l’alchimiste luimeme qui voyait les esprits a travers le cristal. Il se bornait a prononcer les formulcs magiques et a murmurer quelques paroles
inintelligibles. C’est a une vierge pure, qu’on appelait speculatrix,
qu’il etait reserve de regarderle miroir et d’y voir les figures celestes
des anges. Ceux-ci ne se montraient, disait-on, qu’aux jeunes filles
d’une purete au-dessus du soupcon. Outre la femme dont il ne pou
vait se passer, l’alchimiste trainait en general a sa suite un second,
un aide de camp charge d’amorcer les clients et de repandre parmi
les badauds tous les contes qui pouvaient exciter leur curiosite et
leur confiance. La maison d’un alchimiste se composait done d’une
sorte de triumvirat dont chaque membre remplissait des fonctions
distinctes.
A la fin du seizieme siecle, trois imposteurs s’etaient associes ainsi
et avaient parcouru l’Europe, en vivant aux depens des dupes que la
superstition leur amenait. Leurs physionomies etaient tres-connues
du public anglais, et Jonson en reproduit, dans sa piece, les traits
caracteristiques. Dee etait le chef de l’association, l’alchimiste habile
que la foule venait consulter et dont le jargon bizarre, parseme de
mots scientifiques empruntes a la medecine et a la chimic, inspirait
un respect superstitieux aux ames faibles. Il avait pour lieutenant
Kelly, ne a Worcester, aventurier de bas etage, souple et intrigant,
qui recrutait des victimes et les conduisait a son maitre. Tous deux
faisaient jouer le role de la femme clairvoyante a un jeune Polonais,
d’une figure imberbe, qui complctait 1c triumvirat. Jonson met aussi
en scene les trois personnages indispcnsables : Subtle (le Ruse),
dans lequel on reconnaissait facilement Dee; Face (l’Effronte), qui
�HO
LES CONTEMPQRAINS DE SHAKSPEARE.
rappelait Kelly, et une femme du nom de Doi, qui offrait une. res-'
semblance frappante avec le Polonais Laski.
Au moment ou la scene s’ouvre, l’alchimiste a etabli son quartier
general dans une maison de Londres, dont le proprietaire est absent
et dont Face est le concierge. Face, deguise en capitaine, pa ourt les
lieux frequentes, les marches, les places publiques, les bas >tes de
l’eglise SaintrPaul, ou se tiennent les badauds; il racowe les
prouesses de son maitre, donne son adressje et lui envoie les dupes
qui doivent etre depouillees avec l’aide de Doi.
L’entree en matiere est vive, naturelle, habile, et nous transporte
tout de suite aucoeur du sujet, La piece commence par une querelle
violente qui s’eleve entre les deux associes; ils ont un demele sur la
pari de profit qui revient a chacun d’eux. C’est toujours l’interet per
sonnel qui divise les coquins. DansTemportement de leur colere, ils
se reprochent leurs bassesses, leurs infamies secretes, les ruses avec
lesquelles ils trompent le public, et ils nous devoilent ainsi les cotes
honteux de leurs caracteres. Avant qu’ils n’agissent, nous savons ce
qu’ils pensent, ce qu’ils ont fait et ce qu’ils sont capables de faire
encore. Subtle: et Face en viendraient aux mains, si Doi ne s’interposait entre eux, ne leur rappelait la bonne harmonie dont ils ont
besoin pour vivre^ et ne finissait, pour les convaincre tout a fait, par
leur montrer ses griffes, en les menagant de les devisager.
Des que la paix est retablie entre les imposteurs, on les voit a
1’oeuvre en face de leurs dupes. C’est la diversite des personnages qui
les consultent et la variete des moyens qu’ils emploient pour les
tromper qui forment le principal interet de la piece. Les niais
viennent en grand nombre, de tous les points de Londres, frapper a
la porte de Talchimiste et lui acheter le secret de faire fortune. Dans
cette foule bigarree, toutes les classes de la societe sont representees.
Voici d’abord la petite bourgeoisie, sous les traits d’un clerc de
procureur nomme Dapper (l’Eveille). Dapper voudrait bien devenir
riche, pour acheter la charge de son maitre et il sollicite une consulta
tion du savant magicien. Subtle se fait prier pour lui repondre; il
objeete que la loi defend l’exercice de I’art diyinatoire, et qu’il court
un grand danger s’il parle. C’est une maniere adroite d’extorquer de
I’argent. a la victime. Celle-ci ne peut trop payer le peril auquel elle
expose l’alchimiste, et elle debourse benevolement tout l’or qu’elle
porte sur elle. Quand. Subtle tient le prix de la consultation, il
decouvre chez son client des signes merveilleux, il reconnait en lui
�LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE.
Hl
les indices d’une parente etroite avec la Reine des Fees; il lui pro
met meme de lui procurer une entrevue avec cette dame mysterieuse.
Seulement la Reine des Fees ne se montre pas sans difficulte. Il faut,
pour la voir, etre digne de comparaitre en sa presence, et se preparer
a cet honneur par des ceremonies expiatoires. Subtle donne a Dapper
les instructions suivantes : « Tenez-vous pret pour une heure. Jusque-la vous devez observer le jeune. Mettez seulement trois gouttes
de vinaigre dans votre nez, dans votre bouche et une a chaque oreille.
Trempez dans l’eau le bout de vos doigts et baignez vos yeux, afin
d’aiguiser vos cinq sens; criez hum trois fois et buz autant de fois, et
alors venez. »
La maison de Subtle est disposee comme celle de certains medecins de nos jours. Les clients ne doivent pas se rencontrer, pour ne
pas se faire de confidences et garder, s’ils le veulent, l’incognito. On
passe par une porte pour entrer et par une autre pour sortir. Pen
dant que Dapper s’en va, survient un marchand de tabac, Abel
Drugger (le Droguiste), qui va construire une nouvclle boutique et
qui, pour reussir dans son commerce, voudrait savoir quelle doit en
etre, d’apres les regies de l’alchimie, l’orientation et la distribution
interieure. Face, en sa qualite de capitaine recruteur, amene le naif
negotiant et le presente a Subtle qui, sur-le-champ, par un procede
familier aux imposteurs, lui predit, pour l’amadouer, plus de bonheur qu’il n’en espere. Dans la scene suivante, les deux charlatans
jouent leur role a merveille; l’un fait des predictions et l’autre vante
la science de son complice.
SUBTLE.
C’est un heureux garcon, j’en suis sur.
FACE.
Avez-vous deja pu, monsieur, deviner cela? Vois done, Abel I
SUBTLE.
Et en bonne voie pour devenir riche.
FACE.
Monsieur!
SUBTLE.
Cet etc, il portera le costume des notables de sa corporation ct, au
printemps prochain, le vetement ecarlate de sherif.
FACE.
Quoi! et avcc si peu de barbe au menton!
�112
LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE.
SUBTLE.
Monsieur, vous pouvez penser qu’on lui fournira une recette pour
faire pousser ses cheveux. Mais il faut qu’il soit sage et qu’il surveille
sa jeunesse. La fortune indique pour lui une autre route.
FACE.
En verite, docteur, comment peux-tu connaitre cela si vite? J’en
suis tout emerveille.
'
SUBTLE.
Par une regie de metoposcopie, en vertu de laquelle je travaille; par
> une certaine etoile sur le front que vous ne voyez pas. Votre visage
couleur de chataigne ou d’olive ne trompe point et votre longue
oreille promet. J’ai reconnu cela a certaines taches sur ses dents et
sur l’ongle de son doigt mercuriel! ’
FACE.
Quel est ce doigt?
subtle!^
Son petit doigt. Voyez. Vous* devez 'etre ne un mercredi.
DRUGGER.
Oui, monsieur, c’est vrai. .
SUBTLE.
Le pouce, en chiromancie, nous le consacrons a Venus, l’index a
Jupiter6 le doigt du milieu a Salurne, celui qui porte l’anneau au
Soleil, le petit a Mercure qui etait, monsieur, le maitre de son horos
cope ; car il est ne sous la constellation de la Balance, ce qui annongait qu’il serait marchand et qu’il commercerait avec des balances*
(Il regarde le planadgla boutique que lui presente Drugger.) *
Ceci est 1’ouest et ceci le sud. ■
DRUGGER.
Oui; monsieur.
SUBTLE.
Et ce sont les deux cotes.
DRUGGER.
Oui, monsieur.
SUBTLE.
Faites-moi votre porte ici, au sud; votre cote le plus large a
l’ouest; a l’est, au-dessus de votre boutique, ecrivez les noms de
Mathlai, de Tarmiel et de Baraborat; au nord ceux de Rael, de Velel
�LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SHAKSPEARE.
113
et de Thiel : ce sont la les noms de ces esprits mercuriels quichassent
les mouches des boites d’epicerie.
L’aristocralie envoie aussi ses representants dans le laboratoire de
l’alchimiste. Apres le cl ere et le petit marchand, nous voyons entrer
le chevalier, l’homme de cour, sir Epicure Mammon. Celui-ci ne se
contente pas de consulter Subtle; il a la foi, il fait du proselytisme,
il celebre partout les merveilles de la pierre philosophale, il ne supporte ni l’ombre d’un doute ni l’apparence d’une discussion. Il pul
verise les incredulcs. A ses yeux, contester la puissance de l’alchimie,
c’est nier l’evidence. 11 a la passion de For et cello de la luxure; il est
convaincu qu’il pourra satisfaire l’une et l’autre avec le secours de
Subtle, et il se plonge d’avance par la pensee dans toutes les voluptes
qui l’attendent. Ce personnage n’a pas disparu de la scene du monde;
nous le connaissons, nous l’avons vu de nos jours; il appartient a
notre epoque aussi bien qu’a celle de Jonson. Que de fois ne rencontre-t-on pas des gens de qualite qui rompent des lances en faveur
des sciences occultes, qui plaident avec passion la cause du magnetisme, des tables tournantes, des csprits frappeurs, qui_ s’indignent
du moindre signe d’incredulite, et qui entrevoient dans les pretendues communications qu’ils entretiennent avec le monde surnaturel
une source illimitee de jouissances pour 1’esprit et pour les sens 1
Ecoutons sir Epicure Mammon discuter avec un incredule. Cette
scene ne serait pas deplacee dans la comedie moderne.
MAMMON.
Vous etes incredule, monsieur. Cette nuit je changerai en or tout
le metal que j’ai dans ma maison, et demain matin, de bonne
heure, j’enverraiacheter a tous les plombierseta tous les marchands
d’etain leur plomb et leur etain, et je prendrai tout le cuivre de
Lothbury.
SURLY.
Quoi, pour le changer aussi!
MAMMON.
Oui; et j’acheterai le Devonshire et le pays de Cornouailles et j’en
ferai de veritables Indes. Vous admirez maintenant.
SURLY.
Non, par ma foi.
MAMMON.
Mais, lorsque vous verrez les effets du grand oeuvre dont une partie
Tome III. — 9e Livraison.
�I’ll
LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE.
. projetee sur cent de Mercure, de Venus et de la Lune, les change en
autant de parties du Soleil, en un millier meme et jusqu’a l’infinij
vous me croirez.
SURLY.
Oui, lorsque je les verrai
MAMMON.
Quoi! Pensez-vous que je vous contedes fables? Je vous assure que
celui qui possede une fois la fleur du soleil, le rubis parfait que nous
appelons elixir, non-seulement peut faire cela, mais peut aussi, par
la vertu de cet objet, accdrder des honneurs, de l’amour, du respect,
une longue vie; donner a qui il veut surete, valeur et victoire, En
vingt-huit jours, je transformerai un vieillard de quatre-vingts ans
en enfant.
. SURLY.
Sans aucun doute; il Fest deja.
MAMMON.
Non; je veux dire que je lui rendrai la force de ses jeunes annees,
que je le renouvellerai comme un aigle, que je le mettrai en etat
d’avoir des fils et des filles aussi grands que des geants. C’est ainsi
qu’ont fait autrefois nos philosophies, les anciens patriarches, avant
le deluge. En prenant seulement une fois par semaine, sur la pointe
d’un canit, gros comme un grain de moutarde de cet elixir, ils devenaient aussi vigoureux que Mars et donnaient le jour a de jeunes
Amours. C’est le secret de la natura naturata contre toute espece
d’infection; elle guerit toutes les maladies, de quelque cause qu’elles
viennent; une souffrance d’un mois, en un jour, celles d’une annee
en douze, et les autres, quelque anciennes qu’elles soient, en un
mois, et cela bien mieux que toutes les doses de vos docteurs droguistes. Avec cela, je me fais fort de faire fuir la peste du royaume
en trois mois. Mais vous etes incredule.
'
SURLY.
’
En verite, c’est mon humeur. Je n’aimerais pas a etre attrape.
Votre pierre ne peut pas me transformer.
' - ' -
MAMMON.
Entete! Voulez-vous en eroire Fantiquitei les vieilles annates? Je
vous montrerai un livre ou Moise et sa soeur, ainsi que Salomon, ont
ecrit sur l’art, et un traite de la main d’Adam.
SURLY.
■ Comment?
>
�LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SHAKSPEARE.
Ila
MAMMON.
Oui, sur la pierre philosophise, et en haut hollandais.
SURLY.
Est-ce qu’Adam a ecrit on haul hollandais?
MAMMON.
Il l’a fait, monsieur, et c’est ce qui prouve que c’etait la langue
primitive.
SURLY.
Sur quel papier?
MAMMON.
Sur des tablettes de cedre.
SURLY.
Oh! celui-la, a coup sur, doit resister aux vers.
Un des principaux artifices dont se servaient les alchimistes pour
gagner la confiance publique, c’etait l’affectation d’une grande piete.
Ils se vantaient de mener une vie severe, et ils exigeaient de leurs
adeptes une extreme purete de moeurs, sous peine de ne pas
reussir dans leurs consultations. C’etait un appat pour les ames de
votes, et en meme temps une excellente excuse pour expliquer au
besoin l’insucces de leurs operations. Le moindre peche commis par
les personnes presentes pouvait faire echouer tous leurs plans. Les
charlatans d’aujourd’hui exigent de tous ceux qui assistent a leurs
seances qu’ils aient la foi; ceuxdu seizieme siecleexigeaient la vertu.
Aussi le chevalier voluptueux et avide se garde-t-il bien de laisser
percer ses sentiments devant Subtle; il croit a l’austerite de celui-ci,
il le considere comme un saint, et, des qu’il le voit venir, il recommande a son interlocuteur, Surly, de surveiller son langage. « Pas
un mot profane devant lui, dit-il, c’est du poison! — Bonjour,
pere, » ajoute-t-il en s’adressant a l’alchimiste qui entre. Subtle
soutient avec beaucoup de sang-froid, en presence de sa dupe, le role
respectable qu’il s’est attribue. La tirade sentencieuse qu’il prononce
est un chef-d’oeuvre d’hypocrisie :
a Mon fils, je crains que vous ne sovez avide, en vous voyant arriver ainsi, juste au moment fixe, et devancer le jour, des le matin.
Cela semble indiquer les inquietudes d’un appetit charnel et importun. Prenez garde d’eloigner de vous les benedictions du ciel par
une precipitation immoderee. Je serais desole de voir mes travaux,
qui ont maintenant atteint leur perfection, mes travaux, fruits de
�<16
BES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARET^
longues veiiles et d’une grande patience, ne pas prosperer sdT le
terrain oil mon affection et mon zele les ont places. Moi qui
(j’en prends a temoin le ciel et vous-meme, le confident de mes
pensees), moi qui, dans tous mes projets, n’ai pas eu d’autre but
que le bien public, que de pieux offices et que la tendre charite, qui
est maintenant devenue un prodige parmi les hommes. Et si, maintenant, vous, mon fils, vous deviez prevariquer et employer pour vos
plaisirs particuliers une benediction si grande et si orthodoxe, soyez
sur qu’il en resulterait quelque malediction qui frapperait vos desseins artificieux et secrets. »
Il manie a merveille le jargon mystique de sa profession. Il sent
d’ailleurs, dans cette scene, qu’il combat pour un interet serieux et
qu’il a besoin de donner une haute idee de lui-meme. Il parle devant t
un incredule et devant une dupe. S’il faiblissait, il risquerait de
perdrele meilleur de ses clients. Aussi fait-il feu de toutes pieces.
Apres une tirade pretentieuse sur la vertu, il dirige immediatement
contre son adversaire tout l’arsenal de son erudition de contrebande ;
« Il y a d’une part, dit-il, une exhalaison humide que nous appelons fl
materia liquida, ou l’eau onctueuse •; d’autre part, une certaine por
tion de terre epaisse et visqueuse; toutes les deux reunies forment
la matiere elementaire de For; ce n’est pas encore la sa matiere
propre, propria materia; mais elle est commune a tous les metaux
et a toutes les pierres, car, lorsqu’elle est degagee de la partie
humide et qu’elle est plus seche, elle devient pierre; lorsqu’elle
retient au contraire plus d’humidite, elle se change en soufre ou en
vif-argent, d’ou sortent tous les autres metaux. Et cette matiere ele- fl
mentaire ne peut pas tout d’un coup passer d’un extreme a l’autre,
au point de devenir de l’or et de franchir tous les intermediates. La
nature produit d’abord l’imparfait, puis de la elle arrive au parfait. I
C’est Feau aerienne et onctueuse qui forme le mercure, le soufre
vient de la partie grasse et terrestre : l’une, c’est-a-dire la derniere,
; tenant la.place du male, et l’autre de la femelle, dans tous les metaux.
, Il y en a qui les croient hermaphrodites, parce qu’ils sont a la fois
actifs et passifs. Mais ces deux elements pendent le reste ductile,
• malleable, extensible. Ils existent meme dans For, car, au moyen
du feu, nous distinguons ee qui les compose, et nous y trouvons
de For; et nous pouvons produire ainsi chaque espece de metal, I
d’une maniere plus parfaite que la nature ne le fait dans la terre;
d’ailleurs, qui ne voit, par Fexperience de tous les jours, que Fart
�LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SIIAKSPEARE.
117
peut faire sortir des abeilles, des frelons, des guepes de la carcasse
et des excrements des animaux, voire meme des scorpions, d’une
certaine hcrbe, lorsqu’elle est placee d’une certaine maniere ? et ce
sont cependant la des creatures animees, bien plus parfaites et plus
excellentes que des metaux. »
« Et voila pourquoi votre fille est muette. »
Apres ce discours nebulcux, Subtle triomphe, comme un medecin
de Moliere; il espere avoir terrasse son adversaire sous le poids dp
ses grands mots et de scs arguments inintelligiblcs.
L’austerite dont il fait parade lui servira plus tard a se debarrasser de Mammon, qui devient importun, en demandant sans cesse
a voir le tresor que doit lui procurer la pierre philosophale. Il a soin
de placer sur lc chemin du chevalier la jeune Doi, dont la figure
avenante produit l’impression qu’il avait prevue. A peine Epicure
l’a-t-il aperpue, qu’il essaye de corrompre Face pour obtenir une
entrevue avec elle. Face, dont le role cst trace d’avance, se fait longtemps prier avant de coder; il repond que Doi est la scour de son
maitre, il rappclle la severite des principes de l’alchimiste, et il feint
de redouter sa colere. Mammon ne peut vaincre sa resistance qu’a
force d’argcnt. L’heure si desiree de l’cntrevue qu’on lui menage
avec la jeune fille arrive enfin, le chevalier est au comble de ses
voeux. Mais c’est la que l’attendait Subtle. Pendant que le voluptueux gcntilhomme point sa flamme on traits de feu a celle qu’il
aime, pendant qu’il decouvre on elle toutes les perfections rcunies:
« une levre autrichienne, le nez des Valois et le front des Medicis; »
il oublie les recommandations pressantes de Face, il eleve la voix,
Doi lui repond sur le meme ton et l’alchimiste les surprcnd, comme
s’il avait ete attire par le bruit. Sa colcre delate alors avec une vio
lence calculee. Il leur reproche d’avoir contrarie toutes ses operations
par leur intrigue criminelle; l’oeuvre qu’il avait entreprise exigeait
des coeurs purs; maintenant tout est perdu et le fruit de ses longs
travaux est aneanti, par la fautc d’Epicure. Au meme instant, comme
pour confirmer cette declaration, on entend une detonation epouvantable et Face accourt precipitamment, le visage bouleverse; il.
annonce que les substances reunies dans le laboratoire viennent de
faire explosion, que les cornues, les matieres preparees et les appareils chimiques sontreduits en ccndres. A cotte nouvellc foudroyante,
Subtle feint de s’evanouir, tandis que Mammon s’arrache les cheveux
en voyant toutes ses csperances renversees. L’alchimiste a atteint son
�J18
LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SIIAKSPEARE^
but; il voulait se soustraire a Fobligation de faire de For, s’approprier les sommes avancees par Mammon, et se tirer, sans bourse
delier, d’une situation embarrassante. Non-seulement, apres l’accident, il n’a plus rien a donner, mais il a meme le droit de se plaindre;
il peut reclamer une indemnite pour tout le temps qu’on lui a fait
perdre. C’est lui qui fest F offense et c’est a Mammon a lui offrir des
excuses. Il est difficile de trouvfer un moyen plus ingenieux de se
• - defaire d’une dupe qui reclame de Fargent.
i
‘f
Quant au jeune clerc de procureur, comme il insiste pour voir sa
lante, la Reine des Fees, on lui dit qu’elle veut le regarder, sans etre
vue de lui; on lui bande les yeux et on lui ordonne, de la part de son
illustre parente, de depos® toutFargent qu’il a dans ses poches. II
essaye de sauver quelques debris de sa bourse; mais, chaque fois
qu’il cache fin objet, on le* pincejusqu’au sang et on lui fait croire
que ce sont des genies a'iles qui viettnent le punir de sa dissimula
tion, par Fordre de la Reine.
Les ruses ae ralchimiste sunt innombrables. Il trompe chacune
de ses victimes par des moyens differents. Il excelle aussi a prendre
tous les tonis et a jouer millepersonnages divers. Nous l’avons vu
successivemerit hautam avec le clerc, caressant avec le marchand de
tabac, sentencieux, pedant et meme severe avec Epicure Mammon.
Nous allonsle voir eiicore changer de role etparaitre, sous un nouvel
-aspect, 'avcc deux nouvelles dupes. Il s’agit cette fois de deux de ces
puritains hypocrites que Jonson a si souverit livres au ridicule. L’un
cst un diacre fanatique et obstine, l’autre, un pasteur plus delie et
plus fin ; ils arriverit Fun etTautre d’Amsterdam, le repaire de leur
secte, et ils viennent demander compte a 'Subtle d’une somme d’ar
gent qfrtls lui ont envoyee, pour accoiriplir le grand ceuvro. Le
diacre Ananias se prescnte le premier. « M’apportes-tu des fonds?» I
dit Subtle, qui-ne se donne pas la peine de menager un subalterne.
« Des fonds* repond Ananias, la communaute ne veut plus vous on
envoyer, tant qu’elle n’aura pas dbtenu un resultat satisfaisant. Vous
avez deja recu trente livres. »'‘Subtle attendait cette reponse qu’il
avait provoquee avec intention. Elle lui sort de pretexte pour s’eriiporter et pouf mettre ala porte I’opiniMre sectaire, dont il n’eutpu
se debarrasser autrement. Le diacre repousse retourne piteusement
aupres de sdn chef, qui comprend, a Fattitude de Subtle, qu’il faut
plier devant ses exigences et qu’on obtiendra plus de lui par des pro
messes que par des menaces. La secte a le plus grand interot a mena-
�LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE.
119
ger un auxiliaire qu’elle croit puissant et qui peut lui fournir des
armes redoutables. Aussi le pasteur Tribulation explique-t-il a son
diacre qu’un premier echec ne doit pas le decourager. « Il faut savoir,
lui dit-il, supporter les injures et employer au besoin des instru
ments indignes. L’interet de la sainte cause excuse tout. La fin
justifie les moyens. » Tribulation se presente done a son tour devant
Subtle, precede d’Ananias, auquel il a fait la lecon, et il repare,
par son adresse, la faute de son lieutenant. Subtle se laisse, en
apparence, toucher par l’humilite aficctee du puritain et il con
sent a ecouter ses propositions. Mais, quand il voit a ses pieds ces
hypocrites raffines dont il penetre les secretes pensees, dont il connait
toutes les manoeuvres et tous les artifices, comme il sait que tous
deux ont besoin de lui et qu’ils n’oseront pas se revolter sous f ou
trage, il cede au plaisir de les accabler de son mepris, de leur mon
trer qu’il a perce a jour leur conduite equivoque et il aiguise contre
eux les traits les plus aceres de la satire. Chaque fois qu’Ananias
ouvre la bouche, il la lui ferme avec colere, et il oblige Tribulation,
qu’il fascine, a ecouter un langage empreint de la plus sanglante
ironie.
SUBTLE.
Miserable Ananias, est-ce toi qui es de retour?
TRIBULATION.
Monsieur, calmez-vous. Il est venu pour s’humilier lui-meme en
esprit et pour implorer votre patience; un exces de zele l’a entraine
hors de la voie qu’il devait suivre.
SUBTLE.
Ah! cela change l’affaire.
TRIBULATION.
Les freres n’ont en verite nullement le projet de vous causer la
moindre peine; mais ils sont disposes a preter volontiers leurs mains
a tous les projets que l’esprit et vous , vous inspirez.
SUBTLE.
De mieux en mieux!
TRIBULATION.
Tout 1’argent qui est necessaire a l’oeuvre sacree vous sera compte.
Les saints jeltent par ma main leur bourse a vos pieds.
�120
LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE’
SUBTLE.
Parfait! Vous comprenez maintenant qu’il le faut. Ne vous ai-je
pas encore assez entretenu de notre pierre philosophale et de tout le
bien qu’elle doit faire a votre cause? Ne vous ai-je pas assez montre,
(sans parler des moyens qu’elle vous donne de payer des forces etrangeres et d’entrainer les Hollandais, vos amis, loin des Indes, pour
vous servir avec toute leur flotte) que meme son emploi medicinal
fera de vous une faction et un parti dans le royaume? Supposez que
quelque grand homme d’Etat ait la goutte; vous lui envoyez seuleJ
ment trois gouttes de votre elixir et vous le soulagez sur-le-champ;
c’est un ami que vous vous etes fait. Un autre souffre de paralysie ou
d’hydropisie, il prend de votre matiere incombustible et le voila
rajeuni: c’est encore un ami. Une dame a passe l’age de la jeunesse
du corps, quoiqu’elle ait encore celle de l’esprit; son visage est trop
maltraite pour pouvoir emprunter le secours de la peinture, vous le
restaurez avec de l’huile de talc; des lors vous avez gagne son amitie
et celle de tous ses amis. Un lord a la lepre, un chevalier a des douleurs dans les os, un squire a l’un et l’autre, vous leur rendez lai
sante, avec une simple friction de votre remede; vous augmentez
encore le nombre de vos amis. Vous pourrez etre alors ce que vousj
voudrez et cesser de vous livrer a vos exercices de longue haleine J
d’aspirer vos ha! et vos hum! dans une trompette. Je ne dis pas que^
ceux qui ne sont point favorises dans un etat ne puissent, pour arriver a leur but, faire de 1’oppositiQn et prendre une trompette pour
reunir leur troupeau; car, pour dire la verite, une trompette fait
beaucoup d’effet sur les femmes et sur toutes les creatures flegmatiques : c’est la votre cloche.
x
ANANIAS.
, Les cloches sont profanes; une trompette peut etre religieuse.
SUBTLE.
Pas d’observations de votre part! Car alors adieu ma patience !
Pardieu, j’en finirai. Je ne veux pas etre ainsi torture.
Tribulation.
Je vous en prie, monsieur.
SUBTLE.
Tout sera rompu. Je l’ai dit.
TRIBULATION.
Laissez-moi trouver grace, monsieur, a vos yeux. Notre homme
�LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE.
121
est corrige. Son zele ne pcrmettra pas plus que vous l’dsage de la
trompette; maintenant que la pierre philosophale est edifice, nous
n’en aurons plus besoin.
SUBTLE.
Non, vous n’aurez plus besoin non plus de prendre votre masque
sacre, pour obtenir des veuves, qu’elles vous fassent des legs, ou des
femmes zclees, qu’elles volent leurs maris au profit de la cause com
mune. Vous n’aurez plus besoin de faire, pendant la nuit, des repas
abondants, afin de mieux celebrer le jeiine du jour suivant, pendant
que les freres et les scours s’humilient et domptent la rebellion de la
chair. Vous n’etalerez plus, devant vos auditeurs affames, vos scrupules pointilleux; vous ne demanderez plus si un chretien peut chasser
au faucon ou avec des chiens, si les matrones de la sainte assemblee
peuvent laisser leurs cheveux a Fair ou porter des bonnets ou avoir
ce que vous appelcz une idole sur leur linge empese.
ANANIAS.
Mais c’est bien une idole!
TRIBULATION (a Subtle).
Ne faites pas attention a lui.
(A Ananias.)
Je te commando, esprit de zele, mais aussi de discorde, de faire la
paix avec cet homme.
(A Subtle.)
Je vousen prie, monsieur, continucz.
SUBTLE.
Vous n’aurez plus besoin de faire des libelles contre les prelats.
Vous ne serez plus obliges d’attaquer les pieces de theatre, pour plaire
a l’alderman dont vous devorez chaque jour la substance. Vous ne
mentirez plus, avec un zele plein de fureur, jusqu’a ce que vous
soyez enroues. Plus de ces artifices si singuliers! vous ne vous attribuerez pas a vous-memes les noms de Tribulation, de Persecution,
de Contrainte, de Longue patience et d’autres semblables que toute
votre famille ou plutot toute votre tribu affecle de prendre , seule
ment pour 1’effet et pour frapper l’oreille des disciples.
TRIBULATION.
Oui, monsieur, ce sont des moyens que les freres consacres a Dieu
ont inventes, pour propager leur glorieuse cause, moyens remarqua-
�122
LES CONTEMPORAlNS DE SHAKSPEARE.
bles et grace auxquels ils deviennent eux-memes fameux rapidement
et avec profit.
SUBTLE.
Oh! maisla pierre philosophale! Tout est inutile avec elle. Plus
rien a faire. C’est 1’art des anges, le miracle de la nature , le secret
divin qui traverse les nuages de Test a l’ouest, et dont la tradition
vient, non pas des hommes, mais des esprits.
ANANIAS.
-
' ' '
' ■
'
\
Je hais les traditions, je n’y crois pas.
TRIBULATION.
Paix!
ANANIAS.
Tout cela, c’est du papisme! Je ne veux pas me taire, je ne le veux
pas.
TRIBULATION.
Ananias !’
ANANIAS.
Qu’il plaise aux profanes d’affliger les homines consacres a Dieu!
Moi, je ne le puis.
SUBTLE.
Bien, Ananias, tu l’emportes.
Subtle aeu la satisfaction d’humilier a Joisir ces orgueilleux puritains, et, quand il les a cruellement fustiges, il laisse croire qu’il
leur fait une concession, en acceptant leur argent. Le caractere del
l’alchimiste est, comme on le voil, vigoureusement trace et plein de
verve comique. Il appartient a la haute comedie.
La morale voulait cependant que Subtle, tout habile qu’il est, fut
demasque, et Jonson iui reserve au denoumentune juste punition.
Il a recoups pour .cela a une invention tres-simple ; il fait revenir
brusquement de la campagne le proprielaire de la maison dont Face
est le concierge. Face a beau parlem enter a la porle, pour donner a
ses associes le temps de se sauver.et dissimuler leur fuite, leur pre
sence est trahie par la denonciation des voisins et par les cris de Dap-.!
per qu’ils ont laisse, depuis plusieurs heures, les yeux bandes, en
compagnie de la Reine des Fees. Le ruse portier, voyant qu’il ne
peut plus dissimuler, obtient son pardon, au prix d’une confes-
�LES CONTEMPORAINS DE SHAKSPEARE.
123
sion complete, tandis que Doi et Subtle sont honteusement chas
sis, les mains vides et sans avoir pu emporter le prod nit de leurs
vols. La morale est ainsi satisfaite et la punition mesuree a la
faute.
Cette comedie donne le coup de grace a l’alchimie , en la faisant
tomber sous le ridicule. Elle guerit les contemporains de Jonson des
croyances et des terreurs superstitieuses auxquelles ils etaienl encore
en proie. L’imagination populaire qui, depuis le moyen age, avait
grandi le role des alchimistes. se les representa dtsormais sous les
traits de l’imposteur Subtle, de meme qu’apres l’immortel roman
de Cervantes on ne put voir un chevalier sans songer a don Quichotte.
(La suite a la prochaine iivraison.)
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Literature Anglaise. Les contemporarins de Shakspeare
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Mezieres, Alfred
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Place of publication: [Paris]
Collation: [77]-123 p. ; 26 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Le Megasin de Librairie: literature, histoire, philosophie, voyages, .... Vol. 3.
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[s.n.]
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[1859]
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Literature
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Literature Anglaise. Les contemporarins de Shakspeare), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Conway Tracts
English Literature
Shakespeare
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237
JINTERNATIONAL.
Last winter at Versailles, during the Prussian siege of Paris, military
funerals were of daily occurrence.
Every afternoon about three o’clock a procession, marching with
measured step timed to the solemn music of the military band at
its head, wound its melancholy way from the chateau through the
tortuous route which led to the city cemetery.
Borne aloft, each upon the shoulders of eight German soldiers, might
be generally seen at that hour from three to a dozen coffins, containing
the bodies of men who had been killed in battle, or who had died in
hospital of wounds or disease, the biers of some of them adorned with
wreaths of immortelles or crowns of laurel.
Escorted on either side by their comrades, or their enemies, with
arms reversed, officers and private soldiers, friend and foe, were carried
indiscriminately to their last resting-place in the soil of the land in the
attack or the defence of the capital of which they had lost their lives.
Reposing on the coffin lids, now the spiked helmet, dark and brass
mounted, of the German infantry, or the burnished morion of the
cuirassier, now the red képi of the Frenchman, indicated the corps or
the nationality of the dead within.
But whether the mournful procession escorted dead Teuton or
Gaul, the French inhabitants of Versailles paid the customary tokens of
respect as it passed : none, man nor woman, ever uttering a disrespect
ful word nor making a disrespectful gesture as they contemplated in
solemn silence the daily cortege accompanying so many of their enemies
to the tomb, while sometimes, in the case of their own countrymen,
the spectators, perhaps friends or acquaintances of the deceased filed
into and swelled the ranks of the mourners.
On these sad occasions it often happened that but a few miles off—at
Bougival, Garches, or Montretout, at Ville d’Avray, Sèvres, or St.
Cloud—the strife was sharply raging, and new victims for the morrow’s
sepulture were being struck down by the shot or shell of cannon or of
mortar, by the bullet of musket or of mitrailleur, the sound of the
distant firing mingling faintly with the mournful music of the band.
If nations must still go to war to settle their real or imaginary dif
ferences, and each do its best to maim and slay, to burn and destroy
�238
INTERNATIONAL.
the subjects or the property of the other, the horrors of war are some
what mitigated since civilisation has asserted itself, and in the name of
humanity has gained the important point, that belligerents tend each
others sick and wounded with impartial kindness, and bury each
others dead with equal decency.
Soldiers in the field, civilians even in time of war, become hard
ened by the frequent recurrence of such sights as I have described.
Those living for months where the solemn dirge in honour of the dead
indicated each afternoon the hour of the day but rarely indulged in any
reflections on the general evils of war, as, attracted by the music, they
looked from their windows upon the passing pageant. Now and then
speculative thoughts would find utterance upon the childless mother,
the bereaved widow, the fatherless children, the unprotected sister, or
the betrothed maiden, away somewhere in distant Germany or remote
part of France, waiting with anxiety for tidings of the son, the husband,
the father, the brother, or the lover, at that moment being carried to his
grave, while they perhaps were still ignorant of his fate, and only more
anxious than usual, because the accustomed periodical letter was over
due. Would it comfort or console them to be told, at the first moment
of their loss being made known to them, that Fritz or Hans, Adolphe
or Emile had died fighting for his Fatherland ? No ! The abstraction
would be too much for them. More likely far that Emperor and
King who began the strife, or Dictator and Kaiser who persisted in
carrying it on to the bitter end, would be cursed in their inmost hearts
when the sad tidings that the loved one, the bread-winner, had met a
cruel and an untimely death far away from home and those he loved ;
and when the natural grief for his loss would be heightened by the
thought that his dying pillow had not been smoothed, nor his eyes
closed by loving hands, nor his body followed to the grave—which they
would never see—by his friends and kindred, as would have been the
case if he had died peacefully at home. The ceremonial of the funeral
to them would be but an empty mockery ; though by and by, perhaps,
when their sorrow has become less poignant, they may tell with pride
of their relationship to one who bravely met death with his face to the
foe, and point out his name carved in stone or cast in more enduring
brass amongst those of his brother heroes on obelisk or tablet in Platz
or Kirche.
But to the nations engaged in war in the aggregate, the interchange
of the courtesies customary on such occasions does much to soften the
feelings of hatred which each nourishes towards the other; and at
some future time, when the tale is told in Germany and in France of the
tender care bestowed in both countries upon the sick and wounded by
German and by French women—angels of mercy, who have with the
widest exercise of the feelings of humanity tenderly wiped the death
damp from the brow of the dying enemy, and become the repositary
of his last message to those he loved ; when the story is related of the
�INTERNATIONAL.
239
honour so scrupulously paid by both belligerents to the dead of the
other side; who knows but that the graves of those who have been
buried in the soil of either country where they fell in battle or died in
captivity, while serving as a warning to both against lightly appealing
to the arbitrament of the sword, may at the same time create a new
bond of union between them and lead them to forget and to forgive the
past ?
Amidst all the horrors of war it is surely well that the nursing of
the sick and the funeral obsequies of the dead should give occasion
for the performance of those graceful acts of international courtesy
which, like the little conventionalities of society, do so much to soften
the asperities which often arise between individuals as between nations.
While the two countries at war were each day burying each other’s
dead, on December 9, 1870, an opportunity was given to the Germans
at Versailles to pay martial honours to the dead of a nation with which
they were at peace. An Englishman—a Captain of the staff of the
Indian army—died suddenly in one of the hotels. Though he was not
in good health, a zealous desire to learn something more of the art of
war than he was likely to do so long as his country was at peace with
all mankind, led him to employ his leisure time—time which one less
devoted to the duties of his profession would have spent (and justifi
ably so) in quietly staying at home, nursing himself into health—in
visiting the scene of the mightiest conflict of modern times in which
the possession of the capital of France, the second city in the world,
had become the prize for which the two greatest military powers of
Europe fought, and where siege operations on a scale never heretofore
undertaken were to be witnessed. Enfeebled by residence in an
unhealthy climate, the hardships encountered in the tedious winter
journey from England through Belgium and Northern France to
Versailles proved too much for him. Ill when he arrived, after a few
days’ residence, ailing all the while but still hoping and manfully
holding out to the last moment with true British pluck, he at length
gave way and took to his bed, from which he was never again to rise.
Attended assiduously by a devoted friend and brother officer who had
accompanied him from home, and nursed by a kind Englishwoman,
who, having come to Versailles on an errand of mercy to the sick and
wounded soldiers of Germany and France, yet found the strength to
devote the hours set apart for rest to the attendance upon her stricken
countryman, who lay dying in a foreign land, for a few days he lingered,
then the brave spirit took flight and the suffering body was mercifully
permitted to be at rest.
As soon as his death was known, and the time of his funeral fixed,
the German military authorities decided to pay to the body of the
deceased English soldier the honours due to his rank. They did more,
for they sent as an escort a body of cavalry more numerous than as a
captain he was entitled to.
�240
INTERNATIONAL.
At the hour appointed, a considerable number of people assembled,
and each being supplied with a piece of crape to tie round the left arm,
two women amongst the number—one the Englishwoman before men
tioned, the other an Italian countess well known for her untiring
attention to the wounded in the hospitals—they followed, two and two,
the body as it was borne by German soldiers to the grave, preceded by
a mounted band and escorted by a squadron of cavalry.
Englishmen, countrymen of the deceased, Americans speaking the
same tongue, walked intermingled in the funeral procession along the
snow-covered streets. The French people as the cortege passed along,
when they saw the Union Jack covering the coffin, filed in, and by the
time the grave was reached the assemblage was about equally composed
of English and Americans, Germans and French. Three nationalities
besides his own joined in doing honour to the remains of the British
officer. The beautiful service of the Protestant Episcopal Church was
read over the body most effectively and touchingly by Colonel (since
Major-General) Walker, military attaché at the Prussian Court, the
responses being devoutly and audibly made by the English-speaking
people present, while the Frenchmen and Germans, most of them of
another faith, stood respectfully uncovered during the simple service
in, to them, an unknown tongue.
There was no volley fired over the grave, for it is not the custom in
war-time with the Germans ; but the defenders of Paris unconsciously
gave their tribute of honour to the deceased, for at the very moment
when Colonel Walker uttered the solemn words, ‘ Earth to earth—
ashes to ashes—dust to dust ’—each couplet accompanied by the
peculiarly eerie sound of the earth thrown upon the shell by the
friend of the deceased—Boom—Boom—Boom—three guns from Mont
Valérien distinctly marked the pauses, and the sound of the falling
dust upon the coffin lid was partially drowned in the reverberations of
the cannon.
As we were burying this man out of our sight, perhaps another,
another, and another were sent to their last account by the shots which
seemed as if fired to do him honour.
We English and Americans waited reverently till the grave was
filled up, and then wended our way mournfully to our quarters, in
stinctively, and without a word spoken on the subject, avoiding the
route taken by the band, which according to wont marched homewards
to the sound of livelier music than we wished to hear.
That evening at the usual rendezvous of the English-speaking
visitors to Versailles, our meeting was more quiet, our talk more
subdued than usual, often turning to the subject of the widowed
mother and sorrowing sisters in England of him whose body we had
that day committed to the dust.
W. L. Duff.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Duff, William L.
Description
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 237-240 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From The Dark Blue 2 (October 1871). Attribution of journal title and date: Virginia Clark catalogue. The Dark Blue was a London-based literary magazine published monthly from 1871 to 1873.
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[1871]
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Literature
Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1871
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (International), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Conway Tracts
Franco-Prussian War
Funerals
Funerals-Military
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Text
324
On
the
Origin
of a
[March
Written Greek Literature.
T is difficult for us, who live in a reading age, and have so longbeen familiar with rapid and easy methods of writing and printing,
to realise the idea of a highly civilised community which could not,
or did not, read and write. Nevertheless, there are very good reasons
for believing that such a state of society is not only possible, but that
it actually did exist. ‘ There was,’ says Mr. Grote, 4 in early Greece
a time when no reading class existed.’ Even the more educated, who
could read public records and inscriptions, may have had no practice
at all in writing. We are too apt to determine these questions by a
reference to our own standards. But a few generations ago men got
on pretty well in our own country without steam-engines, railways,
or the penny post, all which we have come to regard as social
necessities. And when anything has become, in the present state of
affairs, a necessity, we are apt to forget the difference of circumstances,
in great measure, perhaps, created by it, under which we have learnt
to view it as such. We can hardly comprehend how, some thirty
years ago, all the despatches and all the passenger traffic between
London and Edinburgh were carried in half-a-dozen coaches aday, going
ten miles an hour. That is because the present enormous traffic itself
has been created by the improved facilities for it. Everybody reads
now because there are penny papers and an abundance of cheap
periodicals; and so again, it is the supply which has given such an
immense impulse to the desire to avail ourselves of it. In other
words, supply and demand always mutually act and react upon each
other.
It is quite conceivable then that even in very civilised and in
tellectual nations painting or sculpture for the eye and oral recitation
for the ear might have sufficed for a long time both for the recording
of facts and for the communicating of ideas. In this sense, a litera
ture (though the term itself would be an anomaly) may have existed
without the use of writing. For instance, the facts of history may
have been handed down by tradition and taught by lectures. Com
positions both in prose and verse could be learnt by heart and recited
without ever having been written down at all. The art of speaking
must have long preceded the art of writing, and it may even have
flourished the more from the absence of the latter. Thus in Homer
we find Nestor and Ulysses famed for their eloquence, though no hint
of writing or of reading is anywhere to be found in the Homeric
poems. It is even probable that the high development of oratory
and of sculpture at Athens in the time of Pericles was mainly due to
the want of a current or circulated literature, which deficiency was
supplied by a corresponding proficiency in the sister arts. Human
I
�i88o]
On a Written Greek Literature.
325
intellect is sure to find its expression in one way if it cannot in
another. In the middle ages, Bible History was taught by stained
glass windows and frescoed walls, just because there were no printed
Bibles or Prayerbooks. And Dr. Maitland in his 4 Dark Ages ’ remarks
on the extraordinary knowledge of Scripture which gives a tone and
a character to all the writings and records of a period when some
would have us believe that the Bible was 4 unknown.’ So with the
early Greeks,—where men could not write or read in private, they
talked and listened in public. The modes of instruction differed
from ours, but the instruction was there, and the result was the same,
—making due allowance for the difference in the aggregate of human
knowledge,-—a general intelligence and a power and habit of thought,
with a feeling for the harmonious and the beautiful, and a sound
judgment in social and political questions. Our ideas of the most
necessary elements of education are combined in the convenient
monosyllables read and wfe; and we joke about ‘the three B’s ’
When we add a small modicum of knowledge in figures. Without
such rudiments, a person now becomes a boor and a churl. But it
was not so always. Perhaps indeed this thought suggests a psycho
logical reason why the general decline of art should be so nearly
coincident throughout Europe with the general use of printing-, or
What is called 4 the revival of letters.’ This was a new method by
which genius found utterance, and it drew men’s attention away from
Other and older methods. There would not have been a Pheidias if
there had been a printing-press in the Athenian Acropolis. There
would have been no Greek Plays if there had been Daily Newspapers
to discuss the current topics of the period. From this habit of
realising descriptions not from written accounts but from painted or
sculptured forms, we often find the Greeks comparing living objects to
Statuary, as when a female form is described by the phrase 4 beautiful
as a statue, 4 looking as though in a picture,’ and a man’s character
as 4 unskilfully painted,’ for 4 unfavourably presented to one’s notice.’
So also those versed in ancient lore are spoken of as 4 possessing the
forms painted by older hands.’1 The astonishing number of stillextant Greek vases going back many centuries before the Christian
era, and containing a whole mythology in their designs, is sufficient
to prove the proposition, that painting rather than writing was the
vehicle of ideas to the ancient Greeks.
There are, as I hope to show, grounds for believing that although
they early possessed the Semitic alphabet, they made no great use of
it for a long time except for the writing or inscribing names, laws,
treaties, decrees, or other short records public or domestic. All these
uses are widely different from the transcription of current literature,
and great confusion has been made in this respect by those who thinkI
I41/ 774‘ Kur- Hec- 559- Hippol. 451- In the latter passage
is sometimes, but very erroneously, interpreted ‘ writings.’
�326
On the Origin of
[March
the antiquity of writing in itself proves the antiquity of copying
books.
I call attention to a most singular, significant, and important fact,
which, so far as I am aware, has never been noticed. It is this : that
the Greek language, so copious, so expressive, not only has no proper
verbs equivalent to the Roman legere and scribere? but it has no
terms at all for any one of the implements or materials so familiar to
us in connection with writing (pen, ink, paper, book, library, copy,
transcript, &c.) till a comparatively late period of the language. The
only exception is, that one or two words expressing 2tablets,’—
4
3
probably of wood overlaid with wax,—are found in the earlier writers
of the Periclean era. But it is abundantly clear that the use of letters
for literary purposes was regarded as quite subordinate, and solely as
an 4 aid to memory,’ in which sense it is often spoken of. Thus,
Prometheus is said to have communicated to man 4 the putting
together of letters, as a means for making an artificial memory the
recorder of all things;’ and there is a well-known myth in the
4 Phaedrus ’ of Plato, in which the Egyptian god Theuth or Thoth is
said to have given letters 4 to assist memory,’ to which it is objected
by the then King of Egypt, that this new art will make men forget
rather than remember, 4 because, from trusting to external signs, and
from the non-practice of memory, they will cease to recal facts from
their own minds.’3 We have early mention also of inscriptions on
bronze plates;4 but the word for 4 book ’ (which is our word
4 Bible ’) does not occur at all till near the time of Plato, or shortly
before b.c. 400. The first mention of it, I think, is in the 4 Birds ’ of
Aristophanes5 (b.c. 415), and here it only means a collection of
written oracles, which, perhaps, were among the first records that
began to be written down.6 Speaking generally, it is quite extra
ordinary how very scanty are the notices of writing, or of any of its
kindred operations or materials, throughout the earlier Greek Litera
ture. Even in the Dialogues of Plato, though we know written books
were then fully introduced, there is a total silence as to how and on
what they were written.
But here comes the difficulty, from which we must try to find an
escape. There is a Greek Literature, and a very copious one. We
2 The Greek equivalent to legere means ‘to speak,’ ancl that to scribere means
properly ‘to draw’ or ‘paint,’—primarily, as in Homer, ‘to scratch or mark a
surface.’ It came to be used in the sense of ‘writing ’ because it was at first (as we
see in the earliest vases) an adjunct to descriptive painting. The Greeks had two
verbs which indirectly express ‘ reading,’—but they are clumsy shifts, unworthy of
so complete a language, the one meaning recognoscere, the other sibi colligere, ‘ to
have something put before one in a collective form.’ The earliest passage in which
‘ reading a written name ’ occurs, is Pindar, 01. x. 1-3. After the age of Pericles, the
verb ‘ to write ’ was used commonly enough in our literary sense.
»
3 Aesch. Prom. 460. Plat. Phaedr. p. 274, chap. lix.
4 Sophocles, Track,. 683.
5 V. 974. In Herod, i. 123 and iii. 128, Pi&Klov means ‘a small piece of byblus,’
as XPVC,LOV means ‘a gold coin,’ a bit of xpvo-Js.
6 See Soph. Track. 1167.
�1880]
a Written Greek Literature.
327
have the long histories of Herodotus and Thucydides, to say nothing
of Homer and Hesiod and a great number of Greek Plays. It is
evident that these, or most of these (allowing that epic poems may
have been orally handed down) must have been written. How can
we reconcile this fact, which may be regarded as certain, with the
scanty notices of writing itself? This consideration should make us
somewhat timid in pressing ‘ negative evidence ’ too far.
This is, indeed, a most important and difficult inquiry. To
answer it fully and properly would require a long investigation ; but
the results may be stated in brief. We have no proof whatever that
the papyrus, though so early known and used as a writing-material
by the Egyptians, was so employed by the Greeks. There is much
more reason to think that the authors of works laboriously wrote them
on strips of wood (probably on a surface prepared with wax), and
kept from contact, when laid upon each other, by raised margins like
our school-slates. These would be very durable, though not perhaps
very portable ; and yet, they would not of necessity be much larger
or heavier than the ponderous folios which were issued by printers
only two centuries ago.
Such books were not meant in the first instance for transcription.
It may be greatly doubted, for example, if it would have been possible
to procure, for money, a copy of Herodotus or Thucydides in the life
time of the authors. The autograph copies were used only for
4 readings ;’ and when we are told that Herodotus read his History
at the Olympian Games, and that Thucydides, when a boy, heard it,
and burst into tears,7 there is nothing in the anecdotes beyond what
is extremely probable. For these ‘Displays,’ as the Greek rhe
toricians called them, or ‘ Headings ’ and ‘ Recitations ’ (as we call
them after the Roman custom), were the only way by which the
contents of such works could become known, as transcription for
general circulation was evidently impossible, and as there were (so
far as we know) no ‘Readers,’ as-a class, so there could be no
‘Writers’ or transcribers by profession.
I must guard myself here by stating that I am not now making
a rash or dogmatic assertion. I am only expressing the view which
my researches into this question have led me to accept as on the
whole the most probable view. It does not in the least follow that
because the art of writing was known, and because the proper mate
rials for it may have early existed, that therefore they were made
available for the copying of books. What we should call ‘ spouting,'
or the sensational oral delivery of poetry or prose—more often from,
memory than from written copies—was the Greek method of gaining
attention to literary compositions, and so we find the art of the Rhap-
Life of Thucydides by Marcellinus. This is quite compatible with what
Thucydides says of his own history in i. 22, that it was not composed to vie with
others in attracting an audience for the time, or merely to be ‘pleasing to hear' (es
a.Kpiaaiv'), but to keep and lay by as a possession for all time.
�328
On the Origin of
["March
sodist flourished even in the times of Plato, Xenophon, and Aristo
phanes. It seems to be commonly assumed, but wholly without proof,
that the earlier Greeks had some writing-material equivalent to our
paper or parchment. It is no use to indulge in mere assertion, and
say that ‘ Papyrus, with the Egyptian trade open now for over a cen
tury and a half, nzusi have been cheap and plentiful in Greece and
Sicily.’8 Why, then, is it never mentioned as a writing-material ?
There is indeed one verse in Aeschylus9 in which he speaks of certain
commands not being ‘ sealed down in folds of byblus,’ after the man
ner of an official missive, but delivered viva voce : but the genuine
ness of the verse cannot, even for metrical reasons, be trusted, and
the context tends to show it is a later interpolation. Anyhow, it is
evident, from the mention of sealing, that letter-writing, and not the
copying of literature, must be alluded to. Still the line is one of the
greatest importance to the determination of this question; for, if
papyrus was used for letter-writing, it could also have been used forcopying books.
Herodotus does indeed tell us10 that the Ionians used prepared
skins for writing on, and this is probably the origin of parchment.I
11
Yet no notice of it anywhere occurs beyond the brief statement he
makes to this effect. There is nowhere the slightest indication that
either papyrus or parchment was ever used for the transcription of
literary works.
What, then, did they use? For, even if Homer and Hesiod and
the rhapsodists who represented them, made no written copies (which,
in itself, they either may or may not have done), it cannot be doubted
that the plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles were written down from the
first; and being so written, they must have been preserved (and all
the more carefully because they were unique autograph copies)
either in temples, or treasuries, or among the State archives, till the
times of the Alexandrine school of learning, when for the first time
the use of papyrus and the practice of transcription became common;
and from them have come down to us the copies we still possess in a
more or less corrupt state of the texts.12
Nothing could be more convenient than light strips or tablets
of wood, called by the Greeks SeXrot and vrlvaKss. Each would
represent a page; and for the purposes of a note-book, or of trans
mission under seal, they could easily have been used like the 'Roman
pugillares. That the surface was covered with a thin layer of wax
is probable from many considerations. In the first place it is a
material very cheap, very plentiful, very easily impressed or obliteI Dr. Hayman in the Journal of Philology, viii. p. 138.
9 Suppl. 947.
10 Book v. 58.
II Corrupted from Pergamena, from its manufacture at Pergamos in Asia Minor.
12 Diogenes Laertius tells us that Xenophon stole and published (as he also
himself continued) the History of Thucydides. This anecdote, if true, shows that
the book had not been published or circulated (Laert. ii- 6, § 13).
�i88o]
a IVntten Greek Literature.
329
rated,13 and very durable. We have a vast number of ancient deeds,
and the waxen seals still appended to them remain in good preserva
tion after the lapse of six or seven centuries. There are incidental
notices of these waxed tablets being used in the Athenian law-courts
for indictments and other purposes. So in the ‘ Clouds ’ there is a
joke about melting the letters of a writ in the sunshine,14 and in the
‘Wasps’ we read of an old juryman having his finger-nail full of
wax from scratching a line on a tablet. It is therefore highly pro
bable that a stiff and not a flexible material was at first used for
writing; in other words, the school-slate preceded the use of the
copy-book ; and the ‘ black board ’ of the lecturer is still a witness
to the ancient custom. It is the origin too of the diptychs and
tnptychs that came into use over the altars of churches, not, at first,
for paintings, but for lists of written names.
The examples of Egypt and Assyria, not to mention some other
countries, as Lycia, Phoenicia, and Etruria, tend to show that the
earliest form of writing was scratching stone or clay,—a process essen
tially different from the use of the pen. The form of the arrow-headed
character is thought to show that clay-cylinders, impressed by an
angulai piece of wood or metal, were used before the inscriptions
were cut in stone, which must have been very early, though not so
early as Egyptian hieroglyphics on granite. Assyrian inscriptions
on slabs considerably exceed 1,000 years b.c. The Greeks too made
inscriptions on stone pillars (crTijXai) as early as Solon or Pisistratus,
peihaps, very short and badly executed, so far as we can now judge
from the ungainly shapes of the letters and the non-division of
words. The early ‘lettering’ of the Greek vases, of about the
same period, belongs to the department of painting rather than of
writing proper; and it hardly extended, for two or three centuries,
beyond single words. As a rule, ancient sites, e.g. those called
Gyclopian, are wholly destitute of inscriptions; we might as well
expect to find letters on a block at Stonehenge as on a polygonal or
Squared stone at Mycenae. Even the scratches on the clay balls
(whorls) found by Schliemann at Hissarlik have no claim at all to be
considered as writing. Nor have any Hebrew inscriptions of any antifl^ty (apart from the Moabitic stone,15 with its Assyrian and Egyptian
affinities of form and material) ever come to light in any of the
explorations at Jerusalem or in Palestine. The sole exception to
the absence of ancient writing other than that on stone, seems to be
certain papyri found m Egyptian tombs, which are said to claim a
Very high antiquity.
mpltlXhe+lTOrd Ted by E™Pides for altering words in a SeAros is ffvyx&v, implying
J® L X
6’
obllterat“S words with the blunt end of a stilus? \>l.
SeeZHerodTifi .23e9ared
Called
°r
(Ju1’ Pollux’ Onom- x‘ 58)-
dass ltnSSta°nPdVery remarkable for the early mention of a
glass lens and its use for drawing the sun rays into a focus.
Questioned Tnd SpV?6 ®Upp°sed,date of this stone’ B-c- 896’ is now seriously
questioned, and the date placed as late as B.c. 260 (Atlienceum, Dec. 6, 1879).
*
�330
On the Origin of
[March
But because the Egyptians had the papyrus and wrote upon it, it
must not be assumed, as it too often is, contrary to all evidence, that
the early Greeks used it too, and wrote copies of Homer upon it
even in the time of Solon. ■ A stone-cutter with his chisel is a widely
different person from a student with his pen. It is curious to find
written words described as composed of ‘shapes’ rather than of
letters. Thus, in the ‘Theseus’ of Euripides,16 a countryman
(illiterate, of course) describes the letters composing the name as so
many combinations of lines, circles, and zig-zags, just as if the
letter A were described to us by a country bumpkin as ‘ two sticks
set aslant with a bar across them.’17 There was a legend that
Palamedes ‘ invented writing’ in the time of the Trojan War; and
in allusion to this we have a droll scene in Aristophanes, where
Mnesilochus, a relative of Euripides, while in prison cuts a rude
inscription on pieces of wood, and throws them out to inform his
friends of his trouble.
The custom of sending written messages must have prevailed
early; and we may safely place letter-writing before book-writing.
The scytale was one of the earliest contrivances, and it was a very
ingenious one. Two persons privately kept staves or batons of
precisely the same diameter, so that a strip of bark or skin wrapped
round, and written on lengthwise, would be intelligible only by
precisely the same arrangement of the lines, since the order of the
words would become disjointed on a stick of any other diameter.
There is hardly any allusion to ‘ books ’ earlier than the writings
of Plato. And it is very remarkable that they are spoken of as a
novelty and a development in the ‘ Frogs ’ of Aristophanes (b.c. 404),
where it is said18 ‘that everyone now has a book and learns wisdom
out of it.’
We must next inquire how far the preceding remarks agree with
the opinions ordinarily held by scholars. And this inquiry will
show, I think, how erroneous, or, at least, how baseless, are many of
the current opinions on the subject.
Mr. Grote19 writes as follows : ‘ The interval between Archilochus
and Solon (660-580 b.c.) seems, as has been remarked in my former
volume, to be the period in which writing first came to be applied to
Greek poems,—to the Homeric poems among the number; and
shortly after the end of that period, commences the era of compo
sitions without metre or prose. The philosopher Pherecydes of
gyros, about 550 b.c., is called by some the earliest prose-writer.
But no prose-writer for a considerable time afterwards acquired any
celebrity,—seemingly none earlier than Hecataeus of Miletus, about
510-490 B.c.—prose being a subordinate and ineffective species of
16 Frag. 385, Dind.
17 Athenaeus, who quotes this in Book x., gives other examples of similar
descriptive accounts given by those who could not read.
18 V. 1113.
19 Hist, of Greece, Part ii. chap. xxix. (vol. iv. p. 24).
�i88o]
a Written Greek Literature.
331
composition, not always even perspicuous, and requiring no small
practice before the power was acquired of rendering it interesting.’
He adds (p. 25), ‘The acquisition of prose-writing, commencing as it
does about the age of Peisistratus, is not less remarkable as an
evidence of past, than as a means of future, progress.’
In accordance with the view of an early written literature here
laid down (as if it were a plain and acknowledged matter of fact) we
read, in the Dictionaries of Biography, of Cadmus of Miletus, Charon
of Lampsacus, Pherecydes, Hecataeus, Acusilaus, Hellanicus, all of
whom are stated to have lived earlier than b.c. 500. When howevei, we look into the authorities for these alleged composers of
written prose works, we find only Strabo, Plutarch, Diodorus, Pliny,
and others who lived six centzbries later, appealed to in proof of the
assertion. With the exception of Acusilaus who is once quoted by
Plato, Hellanicus once by Thucydides, and Hecataeus, three or four
times by Herodotus, we find no reason to believe that their written
works, if they then existed, were known to or made use of by the
historians of the very next century. Therefore, if their works really
existed in MS., they were either unknown or inaccessible to the
writers who next succeeded them, or these latter were (which is very
impi obable) so careless that they did not consult works known to
have been written on the very subjects they undertook to record.
We must fall back on the supposition, that if there really were
written copies, either the authors of them had scarcely any literary
reputation,, or they reserved their own properties to be used for
‘ Readings ’ or as repertories from which oral instruction might be
obtained, but not either for lending or for circulation. And such a
view is, without , doubt, in itself neither absurd nor impossible. It
will make the limited existence of written literary works at least
conceivable at that early period.
. But the difficulty does not stop here. We find in the early Greek
writers, e.g. in Herodotus, mention made of three distinct kinds of
literary persons, those ‘ versed in history ’ (called Xoymt),20 ‘ com
posers of stories,’ and ‘writers of stories.’ The last term is the
latest of the three, a fact significant in itself. There must have been
separate professions corresponding to these several terms. The oldest
are the,Adymq whom we find mentioned in Pindar along with the
Baids (aotSot), and several times, e.g. in the opening chapter, by
Herodotus. W^e cannot doubt that they were a class of men who
were authorities in history, such as ‘ history ’ then was, i.e. in the
main mere mythology. Oral anecdotes of marvellous exploits or
adventures, clan-stories of prowess, and all that we express by the
ie esPress^ speaks of the memory of these men,—a fact that alone
proves the absence of teaching from books. They probably consulted such inscrin10ns as existed, and made themselves acquainted with oracles, records of temples
and prytanea (town-halls), and they may have made written notes of them. Granting
even this as possible or probable, we are still far from the era of a Written Litera
ture m circulation.
�332
On the Origin of
[March
terms tales and anecdotes, were called Xoyoz. by the early Greeks.
Such stories were told by Patroclus to amuse the wounded Eurypylus
in his tent, while soothing the pain of his wound.21 And we know
from Aristophanes22 that droll stories of Aesop’s were orally recited at
the dinner-table. Hence he is called by Herodotus, in common
with Hecataeus of Miletus, Xoyo7roibs, 4 a story-maker.’ Dr. Hayman is not justified in saying23 that4prose-writer is undoubtedly
the sense in which Herodotus applies XogoTrohos to Hecataeus.’ We
read in the 4 Phaedrus ’2425
that Lysias was taunted with being a
4 speech-writer,’ Xoyoypac^os, the alleged reason being that 4 the more
influential men in the states feel scruple at writing their essays or
speeches, and so leaving records of themselves in writing, lest pos
terity should stigmatise them as Sophists.'1 This also furnishes us
with a reason for a repeated boast of Socrates, that he should leave
behind him no offspring of his mind, viz. no books or written
treatises. He appears to be satirising a practice which was beginning
to come in vogue.
There is certainly no proof at all that Herodotus refers to
Hecataeus as a writer. It is perfectly possible, and on the whole
highly probable, that the stories, the histories, or the philosophic
teachings of the earlier Greeks were a purely oral literature. They
were put into writing eventually from the dictation of their pupils
and followers; and thus it happens that in after times the zvritings
of Heraclitus, Anaximander, Thales, and the early philosophers gene
rally, as well as those of the historians preceding Herodotus, are
referred to.25 There is not the slightest ground for believing, while
there are many grounds for doubting, that there was any written
Iliad and Odyssey till the age of ‘books,’ which is that of Plato.
Hence, to suppose that such long poems could have come down
to us, by oral recitation alone, from a period five or six centuries
earlier than that, and unmixed with the countless verses which in the
times of the Tragic poets composed the 4 Tale of Troy,’ is nothing
less than a literary delusion, cherished because it is popular, but
opposed to every principle of fair logical inference from facts.
Books were no sooner introduced than they became both popular
and cheap. Treatises on eloquence, as those by Tisias and Corax
mentioned in the Phaedrus,26 the stories of Aesop, and the philosophical
dogmas of Anaxagoras,27 could be bought at Athens in the time of
Plato for a very small sum. But Thucydides, with the exception of a
21 Iliad xxi.
22 Vesp. 1258.
23 P. 138, in Journal of Philoloqv viii.
24 P. 257. C.
25 It is very significant, that Parmenides and Empedocles wrote philosophy in
rerse, which was so much easier to remember than precepts in prose.
26 P. 273. A. A phrase was soon introduced, ‘You are not up in your Aesop,’&c.,
expressed by the word ov ireira.rr]Kas, the original of our term ‘ trite.’
27 Plat. Apol. p. 26. E; Pliaedo, p. 97. C. Eupolis in Meineke’s Fragm. Com.
vol. ii. p. 550.
�1880]
a Written Greek Literature.
333
single reference by name to the 4 Attic History ’ of Hellanicus, and
Herodotus, who quotes only the statements of Hecataeus in three or
four passages (and both writers in evident disparagement of their
authorities), are unable to appeal to any current written literature.
Thucydides is evidently glancing at Hellanicus when he alludes
(i. 21) to ‘writers of stories who compose rather to please the earthan
with a view to truth.’ He does not seem to have known Herodotus
at all; his appeal is only to hearsay and memory. The following
passages in the Introduction to his History are well deserving of
impartial consideration. It will be observed, that in his sketch of
the early history of Greece from the time of the Trojan War, he
adduces no single fact on the authority of any one except 4 Homer,’ and
he nowhere shows the least consciousness that the Persian wars and
passages in the early history of Sparta had been written by Herodotus.
Thus he says (i. 1. § 2), 4 The events before them (viz. before
the Peloponnesian and the Persian wars), and those yet earlier, it was
impossible to make out clearly through the length of time.’ Again
(ch. 9. § 2), 4 Such, according to my research, is the history of early
Greece, though it is difficult to put full trust in it by all the chain
©f evidence I could collect, because men receive from each other hear
say accounts of the past, even when their own country is concerned,
without any more inquiry than if it were not.’
‘Many other matters, even contemporary events, and not begin
ning to be forgotten through time, the other Hellenic peoples have a
wrong notion about ’ (zb. § 4).
4 Still, from the evidences I have mentioned, one would not be far
wrong in accepting as facts what I have mentioned, that is, if he does
not trust the exaggerations of poets nor the attractive rather than
truthful narratives of story-writers,28*which have become little better
than fables through time, but takes my statements as made with
sufficient certainty considering the length of time that has elapsed.’
Thus we see this great writer, impressed with the deficiency of any
authentic history, either obliged or contented to fall back on infer
ences, memory, hearsay.w If he had known of the large amount of
Spartan traditions recorded in the sixth book of Herodotus, he could
hardly have used the language he employs in i. ch. 9, 4 Now those
affirm, who have received the clearest accounts about the Pelopon
nesus by memory from their predecessors,’ &c.
Herodotus himself commences his history with these notable
words. 4 This is the setting forth ’ (literally, 4 a showing to the eye ’)
4 of the history (or research) of Herodotus, in order that events which
have taken place may not vanish from mankind by time,30 and that
28 He undoubtedly means Hellanicus by the indefinite Koyoypdtpoi. He is com
paring his own narrative of facts, as carefully observed and recorded by himself
with the only existing Attic history that was known, by recitations from it, to his
countrymen.
® rcKp-hpia, pivrifMQ, a.KO'f].
* The word he uses was applied to the fading colour of dyes, or of blood.
�334
On the Origin of
[March
deeds great and worthy of admiration may not come to be without
renown,’ i.e. lose their credit, as they would in the course of ages if
they were narrated only to present hearers, and not recorded in
writing. These are precisely the words of an author who is con
gratulating himself on having achieved something more than had yet
been done for the recording of history. The only meaning we can
fairly attach to his phrase, ‘ become evanescent by time,’ is this,—
that he can fix them in writing, and so make them permanent. But
if others had done so, and if Hecataeus ‘ the story-maker’ had left a
written work, to which Herodotus had access, how very much out of
place the declaration on his part would have been. Now, though
Hecataeus is referred to a few times,31 there is nowhere the slightest
reference to any written book of his. On the whole then, it is
probable, or not improbable, that tales told orally (after a fashion
analogous to the rhapsodists) on the authority of Hecataeus and Aesop
and other composers or compilers, were the only prose literature current
in the time of Herodotus. And thus we understand why Thucydides
says more than once that his work was not meant to ‘ tickle the ear.’
There is a passage in Pindar (Olymp. vi. 90) on which, as bearing
on this subject, a discussion was raised by me some years ago. A mes
senger who conveys an ode, with instructions for the performance of
it, is compared to a scytala, or written scroll. Now, if he carried
with him the ode in writing, the comparison is obviously out of
place. But, if he learnt the ode by heart (Pindar retaining the
autograph copy written on wooden tablets), the oral message is very
well compared to a written missive.
Another passage, about which I had some controversy in one of
the leading Reviews, is that in v. 52 of the ‘ Frogs’ of Aristophanes,
Dionysus is there made to say, after an allusion to the sea-fight off
Arginusae, ‘ As I was reading to myself the “ Andromeda ” on the
ship, a sudden desire caused my heart to beat.’ Does this mean, 4 as
he was reading the play of Euripides from a MS. copy ’ (as one might
now read a book or a paper on board a steamer), or ‘ as he was read
ing the name Andromeda ’ painted on the stern or prow (Pollux, i. 86)
of his own or another vessel ?
No doubt, this is rather a nice point. Conceding, as I have
done, that the use of ‘ Books ’ is mentioned as a novelty, in this very
play, my argument is not seriously affected whichever interpretation
we adopt. I think, however, that this carrying about literary MSS.
for casual perusal is so alien to everything we know about the Greek
habits of the period, that the other explanation must be the true
one. The Andromeda was a ship that had distinguished itself in
the sea-fight, and when Dionysus saw the name’ upon it, it reminded
him of the play of Euripides of the same name.
I think I have shown good reasons for holding Mr. Grote’s state
ments to be, at least, unsupported by evidence, when he affirms32 that
31 See, for instance, Book ii. 143, v. 36, vi. 137.
32 Ilist. of Greece, ii. pp. 148-9,
�1880]
a Written Greek Literature.
335
‘ there is ground for assurance that Greek poems first began to be
written before the time of Solon ’ (b.c. 600), and that ‘ the period
which may with the greatest probability be fixed upon as having first
witnessed the formation even of the narrowest reading class in
Greece is from b.c. 660 to b.c. 630.’ He thence jumps to the conclu
sion (which I think contrary to all evidence) that ‘ manuscripts of
the Homeric poems and the other old epics—the Thebais and the
Cypria as well as the Iliad and the Odyssey—began to be compiled
towards the middle of the seventh century b.c., and the opening
of Egypt to Grecian commerce, which took place about the same
period, would furnish increased facilities for obtaining the requisite
papyrus to write upon ’ (p. 150).
Mr. Grote could hardly have been aware of the very significant
fact I have pointed out, viz., the total absence from the Greek
vocabulary of all words and terms connected with pen-and-ink
writing, till a comparatively late period. If he had been aware
of it, he would have stateci with less confidence that the ‘first
positive ground which authorises us to presume the existence of a
manuscript of Homer, is the famous ordinance of Solon with re
gard to the rhapsodes at the Panathenaea.’33 Dr. Hayman, who
adopts Mr. Grote’s conclusions, founds it on the same weak argument,
viz. the requirements of lyric poetry, which (he says) could not have
floated over the precarious stage of their unwritten existence if it had
lasted more than one or two generations.’ But these songs were
used socially, and could be recited or sung or played to music by
memory alone; nor is there the least necessity for inferring that ‘ that
first (or unwritten) stage was a very short one,’ or that ‘ unless fixed
at once by MS. they must have died an early death.’34
A great deal has been said by many learned men on the early use
of writing for the purposes of inscriptions and dedicatory offerings,
but no one as yet has sufficiently discriminated the use of letters for
public or state purposes, and the use of them for book-writing. No
doubt, there are notices of writing in several passages of Herodotus;
but they are all notices of quite a different sort from that of copying
volumes of prose or poetry. There are many, very many, specimens of
early handwriting on extant Greek vases; but they are confined to
single names in explanation of the subjects ; the forms, too, of the
letters are quite unsuited to their use for book-writing, and the
absence of all mention of writing-material (except tablets) is against
Mr. Grote’s theory35 of i both readers and manuscripts having attained
a certain recognised authority before the time of Solon.’
It may be argued, that mere negative evidence is not to be pushed
too far. But then why, if there was a written literature in his time,
33 A x44- His argument is founded on an erroneous interpretation of a phrase
which he thought meant ‘ by prompting from a MS.,’ but which really^means ‘in
successive parts.’
3‘ Journal of Philology, viii. p. 134.
35 Vol. ii. p. 150. It is fair to add that F. A. Wolf (Proleg. ai Hom. ch. xvii.
§ 70) avows the same opinion.
�336
On a Written Greek Literature.
[MarSft
does Thucydides appeal to memon/ and hearsay ? Why is there no
mention of ‘ books ’ up to a certain date, and then a common
mention of them ? I have looked through all the extant Greek plays,
tragedies and comedies, and their numerous extant fragments, with a
special view to this question, which I have had before me for years.
It is not till nearly b.c. 400,—that is, two centuries later than the
date assigned by Mr. Grote,—that I find any mention of books, or
writing-masters {grammatistae), or booksellers.35 And as Thucydides
never once quotes Herodotus, or Plato Thucydides—though he does
once refer (Sympos. p. 178. C.) to Acusilaus—the paucity of written
books (if they existed at all except as the private property of the
authors) must be inferred, and the supposed MSS. of the Iliad and
Odyssey before the age of Solon must be relegated to the category of
the barest possibilities.
The close connection of the word [■hfiXbov or fivftXlov with the
name of the papyrus-plant, byblus, may be thought to prove that its
use as a writing-material must have been early known to the Greeks.
‘Papyrus ’ (says Dr. Hayman, already quoted) ‘must have been cheap
and plentiful in Greece and Sicily.’ Pliny however says that papyrus
was not used (he must mean,by the Greeks) for paper before the time
of Alexander the Great. The use of it in Egypt for hieratic writing
may have been so far a secret, that the method of preparing it re
mained for a long time unknown to the Greeks. At all events, we
cannot show that they ever employed it in early times for any docu
mentary purposes. It may have been too brittle, or suited only to a
very dry climate ; we are on a subject on which we have no evidence
at all, and therefore conjectures in one direction are as permissible as
on the other.37
One point in this controversy is undeniable; that the ZeKtos
(which probably consisted of two or three thin plates of wood) was
used for ordinary written messages or communications long before
‘books,’ properly so called, came into use. Euripides38 calls a
ZsKros i a fir tablet,’ 7rsu/c??, and it probably differed only from the
'lrlva^, tabula, in being smaller and more suited for transmission
when tied up and sealed. There is nothing however in the use of
these implements to suggest to our minds the notion of a reading
nr literary class who had libraries or collections of books at their
■command. I am myself of opinion that nothing deserving the
name of a library was known to the Greeks till the era of the great
Alexandrine School under the Ptolemies, and I have no belief in an
oft-told story, that Peisistratus collected a library for the Athenians.
F. A. Paley.
36 A few faint indications of being taught to read occur a little earlier, as when
the sausage-seller in the Knights of Aristophanes (‘ Cavaliers ’ would be a better
rendering of the title) says he knows his letters very little, and that little very
badly.
37 The word xagrgs, charta, occurs in one passage of Plato Comicus, circ. B.C. 425.
�
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On the Origin of a Written Greek Literature
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Paley, Frederick Apthorp
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 324-336 p. ; 22 cm.
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Greek literature
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[
169
J
( ,
Of fife of Cl)nrlc5 Jickrns.
A
biography which represents the many-sidedness of an individual
with any character at all is a performance given to few men to achieve
—a monument seldom erected to any of the great and memorable.
The “ subject ” is to his biographer what he sees him, and there is no
help for the public to whom the biographer tells his tale. It is for
him to choose, among the facts of the subject’s life, which he will put
forward or suppress—which among the feasible impressions of the
subject’s character he will suggest and substantiate. In no branch of
literature are the total failures more numerous—is the average of
imperfection and unsatisfactoriness larger. In certain cases, where
the “ life ” cannot be supposed to possess a widely-extended public
interest—where it is a demand as well as a product of cliqueism—
narrow views and extravagant estimates, foolish exaggerations and
eccentric theories, may be allowed to pass with a smile. They do not
hurt the public, who do not think about them ; they do not injure
their judgment, lower their standard of criticism, or do violence to
their common-sense.
The transports of the Mutual Admiration
Society harm nobody but the persons of talent who have established
it, whether they indulged so as to lead the rational rest of the world
to laugh at the living, or pity the dead. But it is a very different
case when a biography is put forward with such claims to general
importance and public interest as that of Mr. Dickens, written by
his friend Mr. Forster. These claims are more readily and heartily
acknowledged than those of the biographies of many men who were
great in spheres of more elevated influence, work and weight, than
that of any novelist. The interest and curiosity felt about even
such lives are much magnified by their writers, and, at their keenest,
are of brief duration, the books passing rapidly into the category of
mémoires pour servir. But the story of the life of the humourist who
had afforded them so much pleasure by the fanciful creations of his
brain, was eagerly welcomed by the public, coming from the pen of the
friend to whom Mr. Dickens had entrusted the task ; for he had, at a
very early stage of his career, foreseen that he should need a bio
grapher, and had no shrinking from what Mr. Palgrave, pleading the
poet’s right to immunity from it, calls the intrusion of “ biography.”
Regarded from the point of view of that disinterested and impartial
public whose eyes are not shut by the promptings of cliqueism nor
their ears beguiled by its jargon—who know nothing of the fatuous
A
�170
THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS.
flattery of “ sets,” but who hold literary men amenable to the same moral
and social laws as any other class of men who do their work in the
world and are paid for it—the book could hardly be more damaging
to the memory of its subject if it had been written by an enemy
instead of a friend. Without impeaching Mr. Forster’s sincerity in
any respect or degree—without imputing to him a particle of the
treacherous ingratitude and deadly damaging cunning which made
Leigh Hunt’s ‘ Life of Byron ’ notorious—it may be gravely doubted
whether the little poet dealt the great one’s memory a more cruel
blow than Mr. Forster, in the character of a mourning Mentor out of
work, has dealt the memory of Telemachus Dickens. To all un
prejudiced persons, with just notions of the relations of men with
their fellows, he presents the object of his preposterously inflated
praise in an aspect both painful and surprising. Who is to correct
this impression ? We are forced to believe that Mr. Forster, from his
long and close association with him, is the person who can best paint
Mr. Dickens as he was in reality; we are forced to accept the man
whose writings so charmed and delighted us on the evidence of a close
and long-sustained correspondence with Mr. Forster, to whom he
apparently assigned the foremost place in his literary and private life
as guide, friend, companion, and critic. Mr. Dickens might have had
no other intimate associate than his future biographer throughout the
long term of years during which he was constantly appealing to his
judgment, adopting his corrections, yielding to his advice, and gushing
about walks, rides, dinners, and drinks in his company. There are
no people in the book but these two; the rest are merely names, to
which casual reference is made in records of jovial dinners and meet
ings for purposes of unlimited flattery. Even Jeffrey is only occa
sionally permitted to offer a modest criticism in a foot-note. In one
instance Mr. Forster relates how Mr. Dickens pooh-pooh’d the criti
cism, and referred it to him, that he too might pooh-pooh as heartily
the idea of Jeffrey’s having presumed to pronounce an opinion on
Miss Fox and Major Bagstock while only three numbers of ‘ Dombey
and Son’ had yet been issued to the world. By every device of
omission, as well as by open assertion, Mr. Forster claims to represent
Mr. Dickens as he was—to be the only licensed interpreter of the
great novelist to the world. The world grants his claim, and, judging
his book by it, is surprised by the nature of the information which is
the outcome of so many years of close and unreserved intercourse.
Not only is the one-sidedness common to biographies conspicuous in this
one, but the two large volumes published up to the present time are as
scanty in one sense as they are diffuse in another. Did Mr. Dickens
correspond with no one but Mr. Forster ? Has no one preserved
letters from him to which his biographer might have procured access ?
Were there no side-lights to be had ? The most fantastic of his own
�THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS.
171
creations is hardly less like a living responsible man than the excited,
restless, hysterical, self-engrossed, quarrelsome, unreasonable egotist
shown to the world as the real Charles Dickens throughout at least
three-fourths of these two volumes; shown, it is true, upon the evi
dence of his own letters — perhaps the most wonderful records of
human vanity which have ever seen the light of print—but shown
also, through the fault of his biographer, in appalling nakedness, by
hisi strict limitation of Mr. Dickens’s “life” to the chronicle of his
relations with Mr. Forster.
It is a property of genius to raise up a high ideal of its possessors
in the minds of men who derive pleasure from its productions: it
seems to be too frequently the main business of its biographers to
pull this ideal down. That Mr. Forster has done so in the case of
Mr, Dickens every reader will admit who is not infected with the
arrogant ideas or carried away by the inflated jargon of the cliqueism
of light literature—an essentially insolent and narrow cliqueism
which, when contemplated from a philosophical or practical stand
point, seems to be the modern rendering of the satirical fable of the
fly upon the wheel. The members of this clique live in an atmosphere
of delusion, in which no sense is preserved of the true proportions
in which various employments of human intellect respectively aid
the development of human progress and social greatness. The people
who form the clique have no notion of the absurd effect they produce
on the big world outside it, which takes account of and puts its trust
in talent and energy of many kinds other than the literary; hence
it is generally a mistake that the life of a man of this kind of letters
should be written at all, and doubly so that it should be written by
one who has done it in the spirit of a clique inside a clique. The
reader’s notions of the life and character of a great humourist, who
was flattered, and who flattered himself, into the belief that he was
also a great moralist, are painfully disconcerted by Mr. Forster, who
leaves the most diverting of jesters, the most strained of sentimentalists,
no loophole of escape, by strongly insisting, in the before-mentioned
jargon, that he lived “ in ” his books and “ with ” his characters.
Thus the reader finds himself obliged to conclude that, if that state
ment be correct, Mr. Dickens was a foolish, and if it be not correct, he
was an affected person. His own letters confirm it; but then all the
letters he ever wrote to everybody were by no means so exclusively
occupied with himself and his sensations as those by which only he
is interpreted to the public, and which, instead of being quite repul
sive, would have been pardonable, and sometimes pleasing, if they had
been episodical—if the reader could believe that their writer had not
unconsciously sat for the portrait, drawn by his own pen, of the
individual who was “ so far down in the school of life, that he was
perpetually making figures of 1 in his copybook, and could not get
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THE LIFE OF CHAKLES DICKENS.
any further. A fair test of the effect of such a posthumous picture
of a man who deservedly gained a vast popularity is to imagine its
being drawn and exhibited in the case of any other man who had
achieved a similar reputation by similar means. Let us take, for
instance, the death of Colonel Newcome, the finest piece of pathos in
all Mr. Thackeray s writings, and try to imagine the author writing
to the closest of his friends, while the end was coming in the strain
of Mr. Dickens’s letters about the death of Nelly Trent: “ I went to
bed last night utterly dispirited and done up. All night I have been
pursued by the old man, and this morning I am unrefreshed and
miserable. I don’t know what to do with myself. I think the close
of the story will bo great. . . . The difficulty has been tremendous,
the anguish unspeakable. I think it will come favourably ; but I am
the wretchedest ol the wretched. It casts the most horrible shadow
upon me, and it is as much as I can do to keep moving at all.” In
the impossible case of Mr. Thackeray’s having written such effusive
rant, he would surely have cautioned his pre-ordained biographer
that it was not intended for publication. It is equally difficult to
imagine Mr. Trollope signing his letters, “ Yours truly, John Eames,”
or “ Ever yours, Phineas Finn.” But Mr. Forster prints letter after
letter in which Mr. Dickens calls himself “the inimitable” (a joke
which really does not bear so much repetition), quotes his own books
in illustration of all such incidents as, seeing that they concern him
self, he thinks worth mentioning, and signs himself “ Pickwick ” and
“Wilkins Micawber.” He is in “Dombeian spirits” or “Chuzzlewit
agonies,” or he is “ devilish sly,” or his wife is thrown from a carriage,
and laid on a sofa, “chock full of groans, like Squeers.” In short, he
is always quoting or suggesting quotations from himself, while his
voluminous letters are remarkable for their silence concerning any
other writer of the day. Then we have an overdone dedication of a
book to Mr. 1< orster, and a letter, accompanying a present of a claret
jug, which for pompousness might have been written in the Augustan
age. It is not wholly inconceivable that humour of this kind may
have had its charm for friends who conducted their relations on the
mutual admiration principle, but it is wholly inconceivable that Mr.
Forster should believe its details to be interesting to the public, and
surprising that he should fail to see that just in proportion as it is
*’ characteristic ” it is injurious to their ideal of Air. Dickens.
Was it also characteristic of Mr. Dickens to act, in all the grave
circumstances of life, with a hard self-assertion, an utter ignoring of
everybody’s rights, feelings, and interests except his own—an assump
tion of the holy and infallible supremacy of his own views’and his
own claims which are direct contradictions of all his finest and most
effusive sentimonts ? If not, then his biographer has to answer for
producing the impression upon the mind of the reader, who looks in
�THR LIFE OF CHABLES DICKENS.
173
vain throughout these volumes for any indication that Mr. Dickens’s
fine writing about human relations has any but a Pecksniffian sense.
In every reference to Mr. Dickens in his filial capacity there is
evident a repulsive hardness, a contemptuous want of feeling. His
parents were poor, in constant difficulties, and their son made capital
of the fact for some of his cleverest and some of his least pleasing
fictions; the Micawbers among the former, the Dorrits among the
latter. Every allusion to his father grates upon the reader’s feel
ings. A very amusing but exaggerated description of the difficulties of
stenography, and of the steam-engine-like strength and perseverance
with which Mr. Dickens worked at the art, is transferred from ‘ David
Copperfield’ to the biography, with such a flourish of trumpets
that readers unversed in the jargon of mutual admiration, might
suppose no man but Mr. Dickens had ever thoroughly mastered such
difficulties, and that he alone had invented and patented the “ golden
rules,” which he promulgates apropos of his becoming a shorthand
writer: “ Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all
my heart to do well. What I have devoted myself to, I have devoted
myself to completely. Never to put one hand to anything on which
I could not throw my whole self, and never to affect depreciation of my
work, whatever it was.” Of any inclination to depart from the second
of these “ golden rules,” no reader of Mr. Forster will suspect Mr.
Dickens; but of falling on the other side into an outrageous glorifi
cation of his work, whatever it was, he is convicted in countless
instances by his cruel biographer.
Voltaire’s cynical conceit of the chorus who sang incessant praises
of the poor prince until they made him laughable to all mankind
and loathsome to himself, is reflected in Mr. Forster. Pages are
devoted to the energy with which a young man of nineteen, with
a “ Dora ” in view to stimulate him, engaged in the acquisition of
an art which hundreds of quiet, industrious, well-educated gentle
men practised; but the fact that his father, who was not young,
and who had gone through much toil and care, had conquered
the same stubborn art, and was working hard at it, is mentioned
as “ his father having already taken to it, in those later years, in
aid of the family resourcesand again, as “ the elder Dickens having
gone into the gallery.” When Mr. Dickens writes to his friend that
he has been securing a house for his parents, the tone of the letter is
singularly unpleasant; and people who are not literary or gifted, but
merely simple folks, who hold that the God-formed ties of actual ¡life
should rank above the creations of even the brightest fancy, must
condemn the publication of the letter which Mr. Dickens wrote on the
31st of March, 1851, the very day of his fathers death, in which he
points out that he must not let himself be “ distracted by anything,”
though he has “ left a sad sight!”—(he was present when his father
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THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS.
expired)—from “ the scheme on which so much depends,” and “most
part of the proposed ^Iterations,” which he thinks “ good.” He is
going up to Highgate at two, and hopes Mr. Forster will go with him.
The scheme was the Guild of Literature and Art, and the chief matter
under discussion was Bulwer’s comedy, written in aid of it. Mr.
Forster was going to Knebworth, and the son, just come from the
father’s deathbed, and going to buy his father’s grave, would “ like to
have gone that way, if ‘ Bradshaw ’ gave him any hope of doing it.”
There are men of whom this might be published without conveying
the disappointing, disenchanting effect which it conveys in this instance,
though in itself it is hard and shocking; but in the case of Mr. Dickens
the terrible frankness of it is much to be regretted. Such testimony
as this to the practical want of feeling of the man who described him
self as utterly good for nothing, prostrated with anguish, pursued by
phantasmal misery when Little Nell and Paul Dombey were dying,
whose hysterical sensibility about every fancy of his imagination was
so keen, is overwhelming. Mr. Forster ought to have shown us
one side of the medal only—his friend in fantastic agonies over a
fiction—“ knocked over, utterly dejected,” for instance, by “ the Ham
and Steerforth chapter,” or his friend eminently business-like over one
of the most solemn events possible in a human life. When he exhibits
him in both characters to plain people, he, no doubt unintentionally,
paints the portrait of a charlatan.
In another instance the biographer shocks yet more profoundly the
moral sense of persons who believe that genius is not less, but more,
bound by the common law of duty in feeling and in action. There
is a vast amount of sentiment, there are numerous prettinesses about
mothers and babies, and about motherhood and sonhood in the abstract,
in Mr. Dickens’s works; and in this case also, he, for whom it is so
persistently claimed that he lived in and with his books that he must
needs incur the penalty of this praise, is made by Mr. Foster to
produce the effect of falseness and inconsistency. The slight mention
made of Mr. Dickens’s mother by the biographer is contemptuous,
and his own solitary direct allusion to her is unjust and unfilial.
Could not Mr. Forster recall anything, ever so slight, in all that long
intimacy, so close and constant that it seems to have left no room and
no time in the novelist’s life for any other, to counterbalance that
impression ? The temptation, which no doubt strongly beset the
litterateur, to colour as highly as possible the picture of the “ blacking
bottle period,” has been too strong for the biographer, who has failed
to perceive that in making the episode exceedingly interesting, very
alluring to public curiosity, he has made the subject of it con
temptible. The picture is a paintul one, not altogether and only
from the side on which alone it is contemplated by Mr. Dickens and
Mr, Forster ; it is pervaded by the characteristics of all the pictures
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175
of Mr. Dickens’s earlier years, and of all dealings with everybody on
occasions when they did not turn out to his entire satisfaction.
Neither Mr. Dickens nor his biographer regard this period of the
celebrated novelist’s life justly ; they both look at it from the stand
point of accomplished facts, of mature life, developed genius, and
achieved fame. The truth is, that the poor parents of a large and
helpless family were naturally glad to accept the proposal of a rela
tive who offered to give the means of existence to one of their
children, a boy of weak frame, indifferent health, and odd “ ways,” in
which they were too dull, too troubled, and too busy to suspect arid
look for genius. They were not clever, literary, or fanciful; they
were struggling and common-place. Mrs. Dickens was promised
that the child should be taught something, and given the precedence
of a relative of the master among the boys in the blacking ware
house. Both promises were kept for a time ; when they came to be
disregarded the family turmoil had subsided into the temporary
repose of imprisonment for debt. It is very sad that respectable
decent people should be reduced to being glad to have one child lodged
and fed, ever so meagrely, away from them ; but the man who was that
child, who laid claim afterwards to an exceptional and emotional sym
pathy with poverty, and comprehension of all its straits, could not
sympathise with his parents’ poverty. He could not comprehend that
to them to be spared the lodging and the feeding of one child was an
important boon, and he has been so unfortunate as to find a biographer
who records, as the only utterance of Mr. Dickens concerning his
mother, this, deliberately spoken in his full manhood, when he was
relating how his father and the relative who had given him his
wretched occupation had quarrelled about him : “ My mother set her
self to accommodate the quarrel, and did so next day. She brought
home a request for me to return next morning, and a high character
of me, which I am very sure I deserved. My father said I should go
to school, and should go back no more. I do not write resentfully
or angrily, for I know how all these things have worked together to
make me what I am; but I never afterwards forgot, I never shall
forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being
sent back. . . . From that hour until this my father and my mother
have been stricken dumb upon it.”
A great deal of public feeling upon this point has been taken for
granted in perfect good faith by a great many people, for want of plain
matter-of-fact comprehension of the case on its real merits. Mr. and
Mrs. Dickens were in deep poverty. “ All our friends were tired
out ”—these are their son’s own words. His sister Fanny, who was
gifted with musical talent, was a pupil in an academy of music,
as a preparation for earning her own livelihood; and when he was
sent to the employment which he so bitterly resented afterwards he
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THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS.
describes the family home thus : “ My mother and my brothers and
sisters (excepting Fanny) were still encamped with a young servant
girl from Chatham workhouse in two parlours of the house in Gower
Street. Everything had gone gradually; until at last there was
nothing left but a few chairs, a broken table, and some beds.” The
mother who sent her child to earn seven shillings a week in a
blacking warehouse from such a home—to be exchanged only for
her husband’s prison—was not, we think, quite a monster. What
became of the “brothers and sisters”? Did any one outrage the
family by offering help equally ignoble to another individual in whom
Sam Weller’s “ double million gas-magnifying glasses ” themselves
could hardly then have detected an embryo genius? When Mr. '
Dickens left the prison it was as a bankrupt, and though he imme
diately began the toil which was merely “ praiseworthy industry ” in
him, while it was magnified to heroism m his son, there is nothing
heinous, to our thinking, in the mother’s endeavour to keep those
seven weekly shillings wherewith one child might be fed, and in her
demur to a “ cheap school,” which, however cheap, must be paid for
out of nothing. Stripped of verbiage, this is the literal truth, and
Mr. Forster makes one of his gravest mistakes when he dwells with
would-be pathos upon the effect of this childish expression upon Mr,
Dickens’s mind and manners in after life. The picture, if true, is a
sorry one, for it is full of vanity, self-engrossment, and morbid feeling.
That a man who had achieved such renown, had done such work,
had so employed his God-given genius, should be awkward and ill at
ease in the society of well-bred unpretending people, should go about
under a kind of self-compelled cloud, because, being the child of poor
parents, he had, in his childhood, pursued, for a short time, a lowly
but honest occupation, is, to simple minds, an incomprehensibly foolish
and mean weakness.
If Mr. Dickens were represented as having been proud of the fact
that as a small and feeble child he had worked for his own living
with the approbation of his employers, and thus eased off her shoulders
some of the burthen his 4 mother had to carry, it would be con
sistent with the self-reliance of David Copperfield, the devotion of
Little Nell, the helpfulness of Jenny Wren, in short, with a number
of the virtues of the personages “ with ” and “ in ” whom we are told
his real life was to be found. Mr. Forster looks upon the childhood
and youth of Mr. Dickens with the eyes of his fame and maturity,
and cries out against the ignoring of a prodigy before there had been
anything prodigious about him, just as Mr. Dickens himself complains
of the publishers, to whom he owed the opportunity of making a
reputation, for ill-treating a famous author, and fattening on his
brains. Mr. Foster is emphatic in his blame of every one who was
concerned in the matter-—or indeed who was not, for “ friends ” are
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177
taken to task—that Charles Dickens was not given a good education,
and eloquent about the education which he afterwards gave himself.
Here, again, the besetting temptation of the biographer to invest his
subject with attributes which do not belong to him, as well as to
exaggerate those which do, assails Mr. Forster. There are no facts
in his narrative to prove that Mr. Dickens ever was an educated man,
and all the testimony of his works is against the supposition. No
trait of his genius is more salient than its entire self-dependence ; no
defects of it are more marked than his intolerance of subjects which
he did not understand, and his high-handed dogmatic treatment of
matters which he regarded with the facile contempt of ignorance.
This unfortunate tendency was fostered by the atmosphere of flattery
in which he lived ; a life which, in the truly educational sense, was
singularly narrow; and though he was not entirely to blame for the
extent, it affected his later works very much to their disadvantage.
As a novelist he is distinguished, as a humourist he is unrivalled in
this age; but when he deals with the larger spheres of morals, with
politics, and with the mechanism of state and official life, he is absurd.
He announces truisms and tritenesses with an air of discovery im
possible to a well-read man, and he propounds with an air of convic
tion, hardly provoking, it is so simply foolish, flourishing solutions of
problems, which have long perplexed the gravest and ablest minds in
the higher ranges of thought.
We hear of his extensive and varied reading. Where is the evidence
that he ever read anything beyond fiction, and some of the essayists ?
Certainly not in his books, which might be the only books in the
world, for any indication of study or book-knowledge in them. Not a
little of their charm, not a little of their wide-spread miscellaneous
popularity, is referable to that very thing. Every one can understand
them; they are not for educated people only ; they do not suggest com
parisons, or require explanations, or imply associations; they stand
alone, self-existent, delightful facts. A slight reference to Fielding
and Smollett, a fine rendering of one chapter in English history—
the Gordon riots—very finely done, and a clever adaptation of
Mr. Carlyle’s ‘ Scarecrows ’ to his own stage, in ‘ A Tale of Two
Cities,’ are positively the only traces of books to be found in the long
series of his works. His ‘ Pictures from Italy ’ is specially curious as
an illustration of the possibility of a man’s living so long in a country
with an old and famous history, without discovering that he might
possibly understand the country better if he knew something about
the history. He always caught the sentimental and humourous
elements in everything; the traditional, spiritual, philosophic, or
¿esthetic not at all. His prejudices were the prejudices, not of one
sided opinion and conviction, but of ignorance “ all round.” His mind
held no clue to the character of the peoples of foreign countries, and
vol. xxxviii.
N
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THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS.
their tastes, arts, and creed were ludicrous mysteries to him. His
vividness of mind, freshness and fun, constitute the chief charm of his
stories, and their entire originality is the ‘ note ’ which pleases most;
but when he writes “ pictures ” of a land of the great past of poetry,
art, and politics, with as much satisfied flippancy as when he describes
the common objects of the London streets (for which he yearned in
the midst of all the mediaeval glories of Italy), he makes it evident
that he had never been educated, and had not educated himself. If
we are to accept Mr. Forster’s version of his friend’s judgment and
intellectual culture, apart from his own art as a novelist, we get a sorry
notion of them from the following sentence, which has many fellows.
At page 82 of the first volume, Mr. Forster writes : “ His (Mr. Dickens’)
observations, during his career in the gallery, had not led him to form
any high opinion of the House of Commons or its heroes; and of the
Pickwickian sense, which so often takes the place of common sense,
in our legislature, he omitted no opportunity of declaring his contempt
at every part of his life.” This is unkind. We do not like to believe
that the famous novelist was so insolent and so arrogant as his
biographer makes him out to have been, and it is only fair to remark
that it is Mr. Forster who represents his ‘ subject’s ’ contempt for
men and matters entirely out of his social and intellectual sphere as
something serious for those men and those matters. That Mr. Dickens
was rather more than less unfortunate than other people when, like
them, he talked of things he did not understand, is abundantly
proved by his £ Hard Times,’ the silly Doodle business in ‘ Bleak
House,’ the ridiculous picture of an M.P. in ‘ Nickleby,’ and the in
variable association of rank with folly and power with incompetence
in all his works. He knew nothing of official life; he had no com
prehension of authority, of discipline, of any kind of hierarchical
system, and his very humour itself is dull, pointless, laboured, and
essentially vulgar, when directed against the larger order of politics;
it becomes mere flippant buzzing, hardly worth notice or rebuke.
It is not only in the education of books that we perceive Mr.
Dickens to have been defective. Mr. Forster’s account of him makes
it evident that he was deficient in that higher education of the mind, by
which men attain to an habitually nice adjustment of the rights of
others in all mutual dealings, and to that strictly-regulated considera
tion which is a large component of self-respect. If this biography is
true and trustworthy; if the public, to whom the author of books
which supplied them with a whole circle of personal friends was an
abstraction, are to accept this portrait of Mr. Dickens as a living
verity, then they are forced to believe that, though a spasmodically
generous, he was not a just man. According to the narrative before
the world, he had a most exacting, even a grinding estimate, of the
sacredness and inviolability of his own rights. To under-estimate his
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179
claims was the unpardonable stupidity ; to stand against liis interests
was the inexpiable sin. This deplorable tendency was lamentably
encouraged by Mr. Forster—who in 1837 made his appearance on the
scene which thenceforward he occupied so very conspicuously as a party
to Mr. Dickens’s second quarrel in the course of a literary career then
recently commenced. He had already quarrelled with Mr. Macrone,
the publisher of ‘ Sketches by Boz,’ and his subsequent kindness to
that gentleman’s widow by no means blinds a dispassionate observer
to the fact that the strict right—not the fine feeling, not the genius
recognising disinterestedness, but the mere honest right—was, not
with the author, but with the publisher. His second quarrel was
with Mr. Bentley, his second publisher ; his third quarrel was with
Messrs. Chapman and Hall, his third publishers. His fourth quarrel
is recorded in the second volume ; with the proprietors of the Daily
News, after a very brief endurance of the ineffable stupidity, the
intolerable exaction, and the general unbearableness of everybody con
cerned in the management of that journal—qualities which, by an
extraordinary harmony of accident, invariably distinguished all per
sons who came into collision with Mr. Dickens in any situation of
which he was not absolutely the master. We know that there is a
fifth quarrel—that with Messrs. Bradbury and Evans—yet to be re
corded ; and we submit, that to plain people, who do not accord ex
ceptional privileges to men of genius with regard to their dealings
with their fellows, those facts indicate radical injustice and bad temper.
The pages of Temple Bar are not the place in which the merits of
the indictment of Mr. Bentley at the bar of public opinion by Mr.
Forster ought to be discussed. They form matter for fuller dis
closure and more abundant proof ; but the editor must permit us an
allusion to this case so pompously stated by Mr. Forster, because it
differs in kind from the subsequent instances. In 1836 Mr. Dickens
was what his biographer calls “ self-sold into bondage,” i.e. he was
employed by Mr. Bentley to edit the ‘ Miscellany,’ to supply a serial
story, and to write two others, the first at a specified early date, “ the
expressed remuneration in each case being certainly quite inadequate
to the claims of a writer of any marked popularity.” We have only
to refer to the letter written by Mr. George Bentley, and published
in the Times on the 7th of December, 1871, to perceive the absurdity
of this statement, unless Mr. Forster’s estimate of the claims of rising
young littérateurs be of quite unprecedented liberality, in which case
it is to be hoped he may make numerous converts among the pub
lishers ; while the notion that a man so keenly alive to his own value
would have made a bad bargain, is à priori totally inconsistent with
his whole portrait of Mr. Dickens. But Mr. Dickens never seems to
have understood practically at any time of his life that there were two
sides to any contract to which he was a party. The terms of the first
n 2
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THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS.
agreement which he made, and did not carry out, were as follows:
Mr. Dickens was to write two works of fiction, ‘ Oliver Twist,’ and
another, subsequently entitled ‘ Barnaby Budge,’ for £1000, and toedit the ‘ Miscellany’ for £20 a month; this sum of course not toinclude payment for any of his own contributions. No rational person
can entertain a doubt that these conditions were exceedingly advan
tageous to Mr. Dickens at the then stage of his career. The term»
of the second agreement which he made, and did not carry out, were,
that he should receive £30 a month as editor of the ‘ Miscellany?
The terms of the third agreement which he made, and did not carry
out, were, that he should receive £750 for each of the two novels and
£360 per annum as editor of the ‘ Miscellany.’ The story of the fourth
agreement which he made, and did not carry out, will be told elsewhere.
It suffices here to say that he had his own way in all. Throughout
the whole of this affair, as Mr. Forster relates it, Mr. Dickens was
childishly irritable and ridiculously self-laudatory; and it never seems
to have occurred to either of them that a writer of books, employed
by a publisher, is a man of business executing a commission, by
business rules and under business laws. If Mr. Dickens, writing
‘ Pickwick ’ for Messrs. Chapman and Hall and ‘ Oliver Twist ’ for
Mr. Bentley at the same time, “ was never even a week in advance
with the printer in either,” outsiders will think that neither Messrs?.
Chapman and Hall nor Mr. Bentley were to blame for the circum
stance, that it was no business whatever of theirs, and that it had
nothing to do with Mr. Dickens’s objection to furnish the works he
had contracted to write, at the price for which he had contracted to
write them. The truth is, that Mr. Dickens was not a famous author,,
on whose brains Mr. Bentley designed to fatten, when he made thefirst agreement of that “ network in which he was entangled ” (Mr.
Forster’s astounding description of a series of contracts, each made on
Mr. Dickens’s own terms, and each altered at his own request,) for
he had written nothing but the ‘ Sketches by Boz ’ (‘ Pickwick,’ had
not even been commenced) and he had never edited anything, or
given any indication of the kind of ability requisite in an editor,
while he was evidently not an educated man. In fact, the first bar
gain strikes impartial minds as a rather daring speculation on Mr.
Bentley’s part; and there can be only one opinion that, when the
whole matter was concluded, it was on extraordinarily advantageous
terms to Mr. Dickens. For £2250 Mr. Bentley ceded to him the
copyright of ‘Oliver Twist’ (with the Cruiksliank illustrations,
whose value and importance Mr. Forster vainly endeavours to decry,
but on which public opinion cannot be put down), the stock of an
addition of 1002 copies, and the cancelled agreement for ‘Barnaby
Budge.’ We have the progressive figures which tell us what Mr.
Dickens’ salary as editor of ‘ Bentley’s Miscellany ’ had been. We
�THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS.
181
have the records of his early experience, and of his exact position when
Mr. Bentley employed him in that capacity. Taking all these things
into account, the discretion of his biographer in recording his poor
joke when he relinquished the editorship, saying, “it has always
been literally Bentley’s miscellany, and never mine,” may be denied
without impertinence.
From a more general point of view than merely that of this bio
graphy and its subject, the story of Mr. Dickens’s frequent quarrels
with everybody with whom he made contracts is lamentable. Mr.
Forster seems seriously and genuinely to regard the persons who
expected Mr. Dickens to keep his engagements, merely because he
had made them, as heinous offenders. In vol. ii. page 42, we find
a story about Messrs. Chapman & Hall’s having ventured to hint
their expectation of his fulfilment of a contract by which, in the event
■of a certain falling off in a certain sale, which falling off actually did
take place, he was to refund a certain sum, and this conduct is de
scribed with a sort of “ bated breath ” condemnation, as though it were
a dreadful departure from honour and decency, which, having been
atoned for, is merely referred to, pityingly, under extreme pressure of
biographical obligation. And all this because one of the contracting
parties is a novelist, whose fame is built upon the very articles which
he has supplied by the contract! Why do publishers employ authors ?
Is it that they may write successful or unsuccessful books ? Fancy a
man undertaking to write a serial novel—which must be a venture for
his publisher, who purchases it unread, unwritten—for a certain sum of
money, writing it well, so that it succeeds, and that his publisher is a
gainer by it—the writer’s gain being of course, in the nature of things,
a foregone conclusion, and the transaction being described as “ an obli
gation incurred in ignorance of the sacrifices implied by it.” What an
absence of commercial morality and of a sense of fair dealing is implied
by the notion! If we could suppose this line of argument to be
transferred to the productions of other orders of genius than the
literary, its uncandidness would come out with startling distinctness.
Supposing an artist were to contract with a picture dealer to paint a
picture for him within a given time and for a stated sum, and that
during the painting of that picture the artist’s reputation were to rise
considerably, in consequence of his excellent execution of another task,
so that not only would the picture be of greater value to the purchaser
than he had had reason to believe it would be at the date of the com
mission, but the artist would be entitled to ask a larger sum for his
next work. What would be thought of the artist, if he denounced
the dealer as everything that was mean and dastardly, because he
proposed to pay him the price agreed upon, and not a larger price ?
What would be thought of the same artist if, an agreement to paint
a second picture on the same terms as the first having Leen changed
�182
THE LIFE OF CHALLES DICKENS.
at his request and to his advantage, he deliberately instructed a friend
to cancel that agreement also, and bemoaned himself in terms so un
manly and so unbusinesslike as the following: “The consciousness
that I have still the slavery and drudgery of another work on th©
same journeyman terms,” Azs own terms, “ the consciousness that my
work is enriching everybody connected with it but myself, and that i,
with such a popularity as 1 have acquired, am struggling in old toils,
and wasting my energies in the very height and freshness of my fame
in the best part of my life, to fill the pockets of others, while for those
who are nearest and dearest to me I can realise little more than a
genteel subsistence; all this puts me out of heart and spirits............
I do most solemnly declare that morally, before God and man, I hold
> myself released from such hard bargains as these, after I have done
so much for those who drove them.” It is impossible to conceive any
great man in the world of art or any other world, which involves
production and purchase, writing in such a style as this, and no
blame can be too severe for the indiscretion which has given to the
public such a picture of mingled vanity and lack of conscience. If
this view of the business relations of author and publisher were to be
accepted as the just view, the success of the author would be the
misfortune of the publisher, and the grand object of the trade would
be to supply Mr. Mudie with a placid flow of mediocrity, by which
they could count on a certain moderate profit without risk; but they
would shun rising geniuses like the plague. We protest against all
the unworthy, unbusinesslike, and untrue jargon in which this story,
and the others like it are set forth, not only because it gives an
impression of the character of Mr. Dickens extremely disappointing
to the admirers of his genius—of whom the present writer is one of the
most fervent—but also for a much more serious and far-reaching reason.
Everything of the kind which is believed and adopted by the public
as true of literary men, is degrading to their status and demoralising
to their class. Why should a business transaction to which a man of
letters is a party, be in any moral or actual sense different from any
other business transaction whatsoever ? The right divine of genius
is to be better, honester, higher minded, than mediocrity, because it
has truer insight, a nobler, loftier outlook and ideal, and greater aims.
At least this is the common notion of the great privileges of genius,
and to controvert or degrade it is to inflict on the public a misfortune
entailing a loss. No man can claim of himself or be held by his friends
to be outside, above, or released from any common moral law, without
a failure of true dignity, a violation of common sense, and an offence
to the great majority of respectable and reasoning people who make
up that public whose word is reputation. Seldom has a more un
fortunate phrase than “ the eccentricities of genius ” been invented.
It has to answer for many a moral declension, which, if the phrase
�THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS.
183
had not existed, would have been avoided, because toleration would not
have been expected—for many a social impertinence, which would have
been too promptly punished for repetition. The “eccentricities of
genius ” are always its blemishes, frequently its vices, and the suffer
ance of them by society is a mistake, the condonation of them is a
fault, the laudation of them is a treacherous sin.
Next to Mr. Dickens’s indignation that his publishers should
presume to make money by his work, Mr. Forster exposes most
mercilessly his disgust at the possibility of his illustrators getting any
credit in connection with his books. It would be unprofitable to reca
pitulate the controversy between Mr. Cruikshank and Mr. Forster
about the artist’s share in the production of ‘ Oliver Twist,’ but in
connection with the subject it may be observed, that if Mr. Cruikshank’s Bill Sykes and Nance did not realise Mr. Dickens’ wish, every
reader of ‘ Oliver Twist ’ thinks of the housebreaker and his victim as
Mr. Cruikshank drew them, and knows that, in the case of Nance, the
author’s was an impossible picture (a fact which no one, as Mr.
Thackeray ably pointed out, knew better than NIr. Dickens), while the
artist’s was the coarse, terrible truth. On which side the balance of
suggestion was most heavily weighted it is not easy or necessary to
determine, but nothing can be clearer than that Mr. Cruiksliank
followed no lead of Mr. Dickens, in his wonderful pictures, but
saw the villainous components of that partly powerful yet partly
feeble romance of crime with a vision entirely his own. Mr. Halbot
Browne is allowed a little credit; but, though Mr. Forster presides
over the production of each book in succession, and all he suggests
and says is received with effusive respect and gushing gratitude,
though he reads and amends sheets hardly dry, and makes alterations
which require separate foot notes to display their importance, and
italics to describe their acceptation, every hint of counsel from any one
else is treated with offensive disdain. To Mr. Forster the world is
indebted for the Marchioness’s saying about the orange-peel and water,
that it would “ bear more seasoning.” Mr. Dickens had made it
“ flavour,” but the censor considered that word out of place in the
“ little creature’s mouth,” though the little creature was a cook, and
so it was changed. What a pity he did not suggest that Dick
Swiveller might have been quite as delightful, and yet considerably
less drunken I To him the world owes Little Nell’s death, but Mr.
Dickens would probably have acknowledged the obligation on his own
part less warmly if he had foreseen the publication of the absurd
rhapsody in which he announced the event as imminent; declaring
that he trembles “ to approach the place more than Kit; a great deal
more than Mr. Garland; a great deal more than the Single Gentle
man.” Then with ingenuous vanity, and forgetting grammar in
gush, he protests: “ Nobody will miss her like I shall. What the
�184
THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS.
actual doing it will be, God knows. I can’t preach to myself the
schoolmaster’s consolation, though I try.” Only the pachydermatous
insensibility which comes of mutual admiration could have prevented
a biographer’s perception of the inappropriateness of such reve
lations, and of scores of similar ones; only such insensibility can
account for his complacent sacrifice of every one else to the glorifica
tion of that leviathan in whose jaws he could always put a hook.
That Mr. Dickens may be made to praise Mr. Mark Lemon patronisingly, Mr. Forster prints a statement concerning Mrs. Lemon, which
that lady has contradicted in the press; and that Mr. Dickens’s gene
rosity and delicacy may be duly appreciated, Mr. Forster tells how he
deputed Mr. Wills to make Mr. Sala a present of £20. It is neces
sary to keep constantly before one’s mind that it is Mr. Forster who
is speaking for Mr. Dickens, if one would escape from an overwhelm
ing conviction that the great novelist was a very poor creature, and
that it would have been far better for his fame had he been made
known to the public only by his novels. It is especially necessary to
remember this when we find a school of morals imputed to him, when
he is represented as a great teacher who adopted the method of
apologue, and we are gravely assured that “ many an over-suspicious
person will find advantage in remembering what a too liberal applica
tion of Foxey’s principle of suspecting everybody brought Mr. Sampson
Brass to; and many an over-hasty judgment of poor human nature
will unconsciously be checked, when it is remembered that Mr. Chris
topher Nubbles did come back to work out that shilling.”
When we read scores of similar passages, we ask ourselves, Can this
be in earnest ? Can it be possible that this is intended to be serious ?
Or is Mr. Forster, getting occasionally tired of the perpetual swing of
the censor of praise before the image of the friend who, in his lifetime,
never wearied of sniffing the enervating perfume, and swung lustily
for himself, poking ponderous fun at the public ? Even the humour of
the great humourist suffers by the handling of his ardent but undis
criminating worshipper. The rubbish by which the tradition of Mrs.
Gamp is continued, the silly letters in dubious French, which exhibit
Mr. Dickens’s absolute incapacity to comprehend any foreign country,
and the unpardonable nonsense, in which he was encouraged by wiser
men, of his pretended admiration for the Queen, are flagrant examples
of injudiciousness, which heavily punishes the folly it parades. Mr.
Dickens’s letter about her Majesty, written thirty years’ ago, was a
sorry jest. Mr. Forster’s publication of it now is supreme bad taste.
Mr. Dickens’s sentimentalism, always exaggerated and frequently
false, suffers at the hands of his biographer even more severely than
his humour. Mr. Forster as confidant, and Mr. Dickens as Tilburina, in intercommunicated hysterics over the ‘ Christmas Stories,’
‘ Dombey and Son,’ and ‘ David Copperfield,’ become so very weari
�THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS.
185
some, especially when Mr. Forster solemnly declares his belief that the
* Christmas Carol ’ “ for some may have realised the philosopher’s
famous experience, and by a single fortunate thought revised the whole
manner of a life,” that it is a positive relief when they are parted.
Mr. Dickens’s ‘ Letters from America ’ form the least disappointing
portion of this work ; in them his egotism is less persistently offensive
and his humour is displayed to great advantage. The reverse of this
is the case in his ‘ Letters from Italy.’ In them he is in a perpetual
state of ebullition, fussiness, impatience, effervescent vanity, and self
engrossment. It is amusing to observe that the great humourist was
so little accustomed to recognise humour in others, that it never oc
curred to him he could be quizzed. When a witty consul warned him
not to let his children out of doors, because the Jesuits would be on
the watch to lead their innocent feet into popish places, he swallowed
the warning with the docile credulity of a Vansittart.
It must be acknowledged that Mr. Forster’s advice was very sound
and valuable in many instances. Perhaps his consciousness of that
fact has blinded him to the extent to which his exposure of his friend’s
weaknesses has gone. Was it, for instance, worth while, in order to
record that he rejected the proposition, to let the public know that
Mr. Dickens ever proposed as a title for his projected weekly mis
cellany, “ Charles Dickens : A Weekly Journal, designed for the
instruction and amusement of all classes of readers. Conducted by
Himself ” ?
In one more volume this warmly-welcomed, eagerly-read biography
is to be completed. That volume must necessarily be a more difficult
and responsible task than its predecessors. It is to be hoped that it
will fulfil the expectations of the public more satisfactorily, and that
it will do more justice to Mr. Dickens by doing less injustice to all
with whom he was concerned. It is to be hoped that it will put before
the world a more substantial representation of the great novelist who
was so variously gifted; that it will leave its readers able in some
measure to respect and esteem its subject as a man, for real qualities,
while ceasing to urge an imaginary claim to misplaced consideration,
and especially that it will be free from the faint suggestion which
pervades the present volumes, that, essentially, “ Codlin was the friend,
not Short.”
�[
186
]
£ lluire from tlje pusl),
O ! milii prseteritos ....
High noon, and not a cloud in the sky to break this blinding sun!
Well, I’ve half the day before me still, and most of my journey
done.
There’s little enough of shade to be got, but I’ll take what I can get,
For I’m not as hearty as once I was, although I’m a young man yet.
Young ? Well, yes, I suppose so, as far as the seasons go,
Though there’s many a man far older than I down there in the town
below,—
Older, but men to whom, in the pride of their manhood strong,
The hardest work is never too hard, nor the longest day too long.
But I’ve cut my cake, so I can’t complain; and I’ve only myself to
blame.
Ah ! that was always their tale at home, and here it’s just the same.
Of the seed I’ve sown in pleasure, the harvest I’m reaping in pain.
Could I put my life a few years back would I live that life again ?
Would I? Of course I would ! What glorious days they were !
It sometimes seems but the dream of a dream that life could have been
so fair,
So sweet, but a short time back, while now, if one can call
This life, I almost doubt at times if it’s worth the living at all.
One of these poets—which is it ?—somewhere or another sings
That the crown of a sorrows’ sorrow is the remembering happier
things ;
What the crown of a sorrows’ sorrow may be I know not, but this I
know,
It lightens the years that are now, sometimes to think of the years
ago.
Where are they now, I wonder, with whom those years were passed ?
The pace was a little too good, I fear, for many of them to last;
And there’s always plenty to take their place when the leaders begin
to decline.
Still I wish them well, wherever they are, for the sake of ’auld lang
syne!
�A VOICE FROM THE BUSH.
187
L I Jack Villiers—Galloping Jack—what a beggar he was to ride!—
f I Was shot in a gambling row last year on the Californian side;
LI And Byng, the best of the lot, who was broke in the Derby of fifty
eight,
I ’ Is keeping sheep with Harry Lepell, somewhere on the Biver Plate.
Do they ever think of me at all, and the fun we used to share ?
It gives me a pleasant hour or so—and I’ve none too many to spare.
This dull blood runs as it used to run, and the spent flame flickers up,
As I think on the cheers that rung in my ears when I won the
Garrison Cup!
!
■
'
I. And how the regiment roared to a man, while the voice of the fielders
shook,
! As I swung in my stride, six lengths to the good, hard held over
Brixworth Brook;
Instead of the parrots’ screech, I seem to hear the twang of the horn,
As once again from Barkby Holt I set the pick of the Quorn.
Well, those were harmless pleasures enough; for I hold him worse than
an ass
Who shakes his head at a ‘ neck on the post,’ or a quick thing over
the grass.
Go for yourself, and go to win, and you can’t very well go wrong;—
Gad, if I’d only stuck to that I’d be singing a different song!
7
,
As to the one I’m singing, it’s pretty well known to all;
We knew too much, but not quite enough, and so we went to the wall;
While those who cared not, if their work was done, how dirty their
hands might be,
Went up on our shoulders, and kicked us down, when they got to the
top of the tree.
«
But though it relieves one’s mind at times, there’s little good in a
curse.
) I One comfort is, though it’s not very well, it might be a great deal worse.
A id A roof to my head, and a bite to my mouth, and no one likely
to know
In ‘ Bill the Bushman ’ the dandy who went to the dogs long years
ago-
I
Out there on the station, among the lads, I get along pretty well;
It’s only when I get down into town that I feel this life such a hell.
Booted, and bearded, and burned to a brick, I loaf along the street;
, I watch the ladies tripping by and I bless their dainty feet;
�188
A VOICE FROM THE BUSH.
I watch them here and there, with a bitter feeling of pain.
Ah! what wouldn’t I give to feel a lady’s hand again!
They used to be glad to see me once, they might have been so to-day;
But we never know the worth of a thing until we have thrown it away.
I watch them, but from afar, and I pull my old cap over my eyes,
Partly to hide the tears, that, rude and rough as I am, will rise,
And partly because I cannot bear that such as they should see
The man that I am, when I know, though they don’t, the man that I
ought to be.
Puff! With the last whiff of my pipe I blow these fancies away,
For I must be jogging along if I want to get down into town to-day.
As I know I shall reach my journey’s end though I travel not over
fast,
So the end to my longer journey will come in its own good time at
last.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The life of Charles Dickens
Creator
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Hoey, Frances Sarah Johnston
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 169-188 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Article from Temple Bar magazine, May 1873; attribution from Virginia Clark catalogue. A review of vol. 1-2 of John Forster's biography of Dickens.
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[Bentley]
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[1873]
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G5571
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Literature
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Book Reviews
Charles Dickens
Conway Tracts
English Literature
Fiction in English
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Text
185
By J. Hain Feiswell, Author
of
‘ The Gentle Life.’
There are only two powers now to be feared in Society—they are the Church and the
Secret Societies or Mary Anne.—Disraeli’s Lothair.
The recent terrible events in Paris, which in their inception and
execution both are unparalleled, and as Mr. Gladstone asserts only to
be fully designated by the eloquence of silence, have been described by
some as the 1 last kick of the Commune.’ Whether they be indeed
the last or the first, they recall a conversation and experience which
may here be fitly recorded.
The year is 1870 ; the hot summer blazing into autumn ; the streets
unticly and dusty, very far from fresh, somewhat jaded in fact, and not
over-well swept; in the early morning, very hot too, although the
street- sweepers and water-carts have been their due rounds. The carts,
with a heavy lumbering noise, a splash and a gush, which awoke the
sleepers who were wise enough to have their windows open, emptied
themselves so vigorously that two men at a pump by the market-place,
who looked like two tall half-melted navvies who had been unwillingly
reduced to parish work, declared that the water was like a half
quartern of gin in ‘ a two-out glass, no sooner in than it was out agin,’
and every now and then struck work to mop their faces. Little boys
s&t carelessly on the kerb-stones to let the splashing water run over
them, and the water itself was dashed upon the warm stones in the
stupid, wasteful English fashion, and washed away as much of the
concrete as it could, and then evaporated in an efficient and very quick
way.
The only cool people in the street were the sellers of watercresses,
who with an old chair, an old tea-tray, and an inverted basket, held a
Had of bazaar for green meat, and were careful to use one bunch as an
asperge to sprinkle the rest, and so kept a few paving stones damp
around them. But the 1 creases ’ themselves had run 1 spindly ’ and
were dry and yellowish, and not even the tempting cry of ‘ here’s your
fin® fresh brown ’uns ’ caused the slipshod urchins to buy. The
connoisseurs in ‘ creases ’ prefer the dark shining leaves of the young
�186
AN ENGLISH COMMUNIST.
watercress in spring ; hence the term of ‘ brown ’uns.’ But it was far
too late in the season for them.
The place was Greville Street, Hatton Garden ; the house once a very
handsome one when old city merchants dwelt in the ‘ garden ’ close to
it, and some remnants of the nobility still lingered about the quarter
named from Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke. The street had long been
left to wild tribes of workmen, and a colony of Italian glass-workers,
mathematical instrument makers, silverers, gilders,looking-glass makers,
tube blowers, image vendors, modellers, makers of decorations for
cornices and ceilings, and other artists, had settled in the quarter and
made it what it was fitly called—-little Italy. Here and there a Fre nch
basket-maker had taken a huge house and filled it from the top to the
bottom with baskets, which were delivered in gigantic bnudles neatly
sewn up in canvas, and which reached from the pavement to the top of
the first-floor window.
The insides of these bundles were wondrous specimens of ‘packing.’
For instance, a wicker cradle as big as that which contained the infant
Hercules—for English babies run large—held within it many various
sizes down to the tiniest doll’s cradle ; and baskets followed the same
rule until they were small enough to be stuffed compactly with wicker
rattles, which with a piece of bent tin in them emitted strange noises
like the ghost of a sheep bell. These huge parcels took certain gentle
men in blouses—MM. Achille, Gustave, Arsène, and others—a whole
day to unpack, and during this pleasant operation, A. G. and A., who
were wildly republican, but devoted to the ladies as deeply as the
gayest courtier in the time of Louis XIV., showed their white teeth,
smoothed their black moustaches, and smiled fondly and gallantly upon
any ‘ Misse ’ who passed by.
Inside one of these tall houses, in a back room smelling of vinegar
and as cool as it well could be, sat two men : one was an English
gentleman, the other an Englishman too, of the ‘ base mechanic sort,’ as
some of the superfine swells in Shakespeare’s play are made bitterly and
satirically to say. The sick man was of the base sort—if we dare apply
that to any class ; that is, he got his living by a handicraft which as
surely as it fed him, so surely brought him his death. He knew that,
and we knew it too. It was as certain as statistics. The little boy who
was apprenticed to it would have ten or it may be twenty years
deducted from the sum of his young life, and would be badly paid after
all. He was a water-gilder, an occupation fast dying out, as electro
gilding, which is not half as good they say, has superseded it. When
we have anything good we have to pay for it.
The occupation of the ‘ base mechanic ’—the notion of a man losing
his life by inches and yet being base, although all the while he was
making very beautiful things, is not pleasant—would of course account
for two or three very beautiful silver vases, parcel-gilt, of excellent art,
and glowing inside with a deep reflected red (a colour which made one
�AN ENGLISH COMMUNIST.
187
understand why the Scotch called gold the ‘red siller,’ and old ballads
talk about the red red gold), and on the outside with a moonlight glory
of fine polish, picked out with lighter gilding.
The occupation of the invalid would also account for the pallor of his
face, the partial toothlessness of his jaws, though the man was young,
the blue marks under his eyes and round his lips, and the continual
trembling of his limbs. Mercury had done its work upon him, and a
hacking cough which shook and tore him to pieces was finishing him
as fie sat.
He looked with satisfaction at the vases. ‘ Them’s the last,’ he said
to his guest and friend. ‘ I give Mr. Jonson my word, and I worked
till I done it. It’s finished me though.’
‘Mr. Jonson,’ said his friend, taking up one of the cups daintily,£ why
they have a coronet on them, and, by the way, the arms and supporters
of the Earl of Mudford—Virtus sola nobilitas.’
1 That’s the motto. Mr. Jonson is the silversmith ; I only know his
name in it. What does that mean ? ’
‘ Virtue is the only nobility. Virtus means strength as well, some
times valour.’
I Ah ! read it that way. If all’s true of Lord Mudford it won’t suit
the other way. He’s strong enough and as big as a bull; he saw me
to give me some directions, and spoke to me as if I was dirt.’
‘ It’s his way; he is a good fellow enough, I hear, but rather wild.’
II wish them noblemen wouldn’t fancy every poor man was deaf. He
split my poor head open a’most, but I give him my word and I
done it.’
It was satisfactory to the poor man this finishing of his last work,
for, base as he was, he was honourable.
‘ You mustn’t talk too much,’ said his companion. 1 Be quiet and
you will be better. When I picked you up in the street a fortnight
ago, I never thought to see you so well as you are. It was a cold
night then—one of those sudden cold nights that we sometimes have
in summer, and the change from your hot workshop was too much
for your lungs, poor fellow.’
‘ Very kind of you, sir; very kind.’
‘Yes, a fellow-feeling you see; I had been nearly as bad.’
The conversation was here interrupted by an Italian who, Swarthy,
black-headed, and full of health, with a huge lettuce in one hand and
a flask of oil in his pocket, opened the door gently and took off his
©ap politely as he entered. ‘ L’ ho apportata,’ said he, putting down
the lettuce, ‘ we will make salad. Here is something also.’ He placed
a little packet on the table by the side of the dying man. ‘ From the
society,’ he said. ‘ We had a meeting, and I opened to them your
case.’
‘ I won’t touch it. I have kept at work and don’t want it.’
The Italian waved his hand. ‘ You are a good workman, and we
�188
AN ENGLISH COMMUNIST.
know our duty’ said he. 4 If not you, yet for the signora—she will
need it, Mister Walsh.’
The water-gilder sighed and let the parcel lie.
‘ Madre Natura takes care of her children,’ said Giuseppe softly
with a smile, 1 which is more than the State does.’
He moved about the room, found a basin, rinsed the lettuce, mixed
oil, vinegar, and sugar, tasted the mixture, and cutting the lettuce
into shreds, pronounced the salad capital; then saying, ‘ Avrete del vino
e della latte,'' went out to get those articles.
‘He’s a good Samaritan,’ said the gentleman with a smile. ‘J
suppose in this Italian quarter you like salads and foreign dishes.’
‘ We get used to them.’
‘And to other things—to Madre Natura, for instance ; I have heard
about it. What is that ? ’
‘ A great society which has branches all over the world. You will
hear about it soon. Do you know the name of Mary Anne ? ’
‘ Hot meaning a woman ? Yes, I have just heard about it and that
is all; in Sheffield and elsewhere.’
‘ At Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, down here ; in New York,
Paris, Berlin, and at San Brancisco, Melbourne, and Victoria; for the
matter of that, all over the world.’
‘ A large society. What does it mean ? ’
‘ Labour against capital, that’s all,' said the water-gilder in a whisper,
for his voice was weak.
‘ You have to fight with a giant,’ answered his companion.
‘ And we shall beat; at least I think I shall be out of the struggle
soon enough, but I leave a boy who may come after me. It will be
better for him.’
‘ Del vino,’ cried the bass voice of the Italian, bringing some thin
white wine, cheap enough in those quarters, and mixed with water
very delicious in the hot weather.
A Samaritan indeed, for he brought oil and wine, and declaring that
he meant to take a holiday, ‘ Avremo vacanza, amico mio,’ he said to
the poor sick fellow, constituted himself his watcher, took the place of
the Englishman who went away sadly, hardly expecting to see the
poor water-gilder again.
As it was, however, he lingered on some weeks, and from conversa
tions between him and his visitor, and many explanations from Giuseppe
and one of the Erench basket-makers from over the way, certain truths
were picked up which are here given.
The kindness of these men, foreigners and exiles, both of whom had
fought in the streets of Paris or of Naples, and to whom revolution
was a creed, was remarkable. They were as tender as their creed,
according to some, was cruel and wild. The difficulty which society
will have in dealing with such political regenerators is that theirs is not
the conspiracy of bad men for a mere chimerical object selfish in itg
�AN ENGLISH COMMUNIST.
189
end, but the combination of good men driven to despair at the present
state of society, for an end which the world holds to be Utopian, but
'Which they believe to be in their grasp.
Here, then, follow some of their sentences. Edward Walsh, the
water-gilder, a good sound English workman, who, whether he has
culture or not, whether his education be defective, or he has imbibed
some sweetness and light, was an excellent workman, and had died
at an early age, leaving his wife and child—through no fault of his
own—almost at the mercy of the world. Three men were left: the
guest who first sat by Walsh’s side when the narrative commences,
Arsene the basket-maker, and Giuseppe the Italian modeller, his
decent black clothes somewhat whitened in patches with plaster of
Paris, as if it oozed out of his pores or dusted from his finger-nails.
These after the funeral are debating the matter.
‘ The service is very simple, and the Padre was a good kind gentle
man, but that won’t bring Walsh back to his family or do any good
for him.’ So far the Italian.
‘Ho. We have grown tired of you gentlemen and your religion. We
take our wives to our bosoms and put our dead in earth without forms
or priest. Christianity is very pretty, very touching sometimes, but
for the world, look you there, m’sieur, it is exploded.’
‘ Senza dubbio,’ said Giuseppe. ‘ The time has past for it. We have
had men of genius who loved it, men of science who admired it:
Dante, Galileo, they were its friends—it persecuted and condemned
them.’
‘ The priesthood did: the Church if you like, not the faith.’
‘We make no difference, nous autres. Here am I; look at me,
Arsene Dubois, I loved the faith ; it was sweet in my childhood. I
have outlived it. What Church does good ? Not even to the few
who love it, the rich, the comfortable, as you call them. And remember
beneath them are the thousands of workers who are strange or
antagonistic to it; why these bear the same relation to what they call
here the “ upper crust ” of society as the body of one of your cakes of
Christmas does to the thin sugar which makes it look white and pretty
On the top.’
‘ And you have not made them Christian in eighteen centuries. The
sugar does not mix ; it thinks itself superior to the cake, and yet the
cake has all the goodness ; is all the food, I mean—produces everything
like the workers. And these, my faith, they live in Paris, Berlin, New
York, or Manchester, nine and ten in a room, and die like this poor
Walsh. Christianity has failed.’
‘ No ; we have failed in making our Christianity real. What would
you have ? ’
‘ Law ! ’
‘ Law ; why that is not justice even in England, where it is best
adminstered.’
�190
AN ENGLISH COMMUNIST.
‘Kot lawyer’s law, good sir, but social law,’ answered Arsene,
‘ administered by society—“ a supreme headship chosen by other
societies ”—that is what one of our English brethren writes.’
‘ Si, si. The Commune. All the good for the good of all. Get thee behind
me, priests, kings, nobles ! What have you done in your twenty cen
turies since Christ came and preached the true religion of the Commune,
“ Love one another”? Why, sirs, they have picked out the best places’,
the parks, the bouses, the carriages, the very ships, rivers, lakes, and
waters ; they have provided for their families, they have taken hold of
the Signor Christ Himself and turned His coat inside out. And during
this while Humanity has worked for them or starved and died.’
‘ It is so,’ said the Frenchman. ‘ Government by the upper classes has
failed. We do not blame them; they saw only as far as they could.
You have a word which is very expressive; you gentlemen are Conser
vatives, you would conserver toutes les choses—keep things as they are,
Well, for you it is very good. It means the Universities, the Church,
the army, fine places and parks; and all nice things, the lamb, the
turbot, and the lobster; poetry, fine art, and splendid emotions, c'est
; but for others, for us, it means little children of four destroying
their lives by dipping matches, gangs of boys and girls driven for miles
to weed your fields at half-a-crown a week; labourers who rear the
lambs paid at nine or twelve shillings; death in the frozen sea for
the man who catches the lobster and the turbot, and half-a-crown a day
for self, boat, and peril, while the fishmonger makes a great fortune, and
plants a paradise or builds a palace ; poverty and hard work for the poet,
the paper maker, and the printer of your books, and the fate of Edward
Walsh for the preparer of fine art. This is a rough outline of our view.
As a rule it is a true one, though there may be exceptions.’
‘ Vero e vero ! True by the good God who has suffered all this, that is,
for ninety out of a hundred. Some giants fight their way upwards,
but the flock dies as its fathers.’
‘Kow we don’t hate you—we did once—we could have slain all
of you, vous autres, but we do not wish so now. But look you, we
will remove you.’
‘ Who will ? ’
‘ Madre Natura. The Commune, the Contrat Social. Is it not time to
shuffle the cards ? ’
‘ For from the workers,’ continued Arsene, ‘ in brain or by hand—and
you are one of these and should be one of us—come all things. There are
exceptions, you say. Kone, not enough to prove the rule. The steam
plough, the plough itself, the spade, the seeds that are sown, the breed
ing of cattle, all proceed from the brains of the masses, and are paid
for by the money of the masses. The pictures which adorn your walls,
the books which teach you how to live, how to die, how to pray, the
very outwork and defence of your religion, all come from the brains of
the workers, poor students often starving and neglected ; the very faith
�AN ENGLISH COMMUNIST.
191-
you inherit arose from One poor and neglected, who was crucified as a
malefactor, and the very theories by which you administer your wealth
from the solitary students of political economy who were neglected and
laughed at till yon found their theories of use.’
‘ Bravo ! Arsene my son.’
‘ Now we have got tired of all that; we have put it aside as useless ;
others may take it up, a religion which binds us to suffer, and not to
redress wrong.’
1 Does it do that ? The Church will tell you very differently.’
‘ Bah! the Church she is dead; we have no Church, we live for
Humanity. We propose to redistribute wealth, to reward labour, to
punish idleness and over-luxury. Instead of one being educated and
despising others, all shall be educated and none despised. We live no
longer for individual selfishness, but for Humanity.’
‘ You are Comtists then ; you worship the divine Auguste.’
4 Not as divine ; he was one of us. We worship what he worshipped
in his poor ideal, the race, humanity, Madre Natura, all the good for
the good of all, as one of your English said.’
4 But what becomes of trade, society, law, physic, and divinity F ’
1 Ah, my friend, you have a long way to go. What becomes of our
sons that we furnished for your armies and your footmen, our daughters
who were your mistresses or servants, when the whole Society shall
move round you, in every city in France, Germany, Italy, America,
and quietly dispossess you ? We will not slay you if you are quiet—we
will remove you.’
4 You are dreaming. How many have you ? ’
4 Three millions already, and each one an apostle. Nothing stands in
Our way. You remember Mr. Broadhead and Sheffield.’
4 A detestable murderer------’
4 An agent of the great Society, not very wise perhaps, but clear about
his duty and his way. We find that it is of no use to appeal to religion,
to faith, to patriotism, to learning, to culture, to government by the rich.
These do not stop wars nor baby murders, not the death and degrada
tion of millions. We will and we can. We have a president in every
Country, secretaries in every town, members everywhere. We help
our poor—you saw Giuseppe bring money to poor Walsh ; you would
give him dry bread and the workhouse. Your religion encourages the
Scamp and the beggar, and gives away at least the half of seven
millions of gold sovereigns in London alone, to the cheat and the idler.
Our Society would make them work or would let them starve. You
allow millions of children in your fields and streets to grow up to vice
and ignorance ; Mary Anne would take and teach them. At the same
time she is pitiless to those that stand in her way. She says,11 Move on
or I will crush you.” ’
4 A dreadful sentence to thousands who are innocent,’
* Machinery is very cruel to those that are in its way; but as for
�192
AN ENGLISH COMMUNIST.
removal of incumbrances a certain Voice said, “ It hath borne no fruit;
cut it down, why cumbreth it the ground.” ’
1 It also said, “ Come unto me, ye that are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest.” ’
‘ Which priests deny. We have few prayers but our labour, but these
prayers clothe all, feed all, and yet we are denied acceptance into every
Church ; so closely are their doors barred in by dogmas. But enough.
Let those who like the churches take them. It is a free fight with us ;
we have done with Faith, we fight only for Humanity. Let heaven lie
beyond this earth as it may, why should it be purchased—and even
then denied—by misery and degradation here F We will make the world
better than it is.’
‘ What a cruel conspiracy I ’
‘ As cruel as the surgeon’s knife, which by removing a small portion
—say the scalp if you like—gives health to the whole body. Join us ;
we are not cruel, but we are tired of so much talk and so little action
of reforms which always result in greater comfort for the rich and
more work for the poor; of faith which spreads wings of gold, and
utters golden words, but has feet of lead; of the press which makes
great promises and ends in being the reporter of court circulars, grand
doings, cricket matches, horse races, and the grand palaver club, and
yet does nothing of patriots who are silenced by a place. All have
failed—now we workmen, the creators of all, come forward, no longer
to be governed but to govern all. We number three million souls.’
‘ If we have any, Fratel mio ; but we leave that to others ; we take care
only of the body and the mind; we who understand our principles, simple
and wise as they are, and who mean to enforce them. You will hear no
doubt of our struggles; you will hear us called harsh names, for in
brushing the butterflies away we shall dust their wings ; thousands of
us may die, but we do that every day.
‘ We are used to it, Fratello,’ said Giuseppe, giving him an admiring
thump on his back. ‘ We shall die nobly.’
£ And whatever society may say, we shall not fail, any more than do
the nation of ants in South America, which to cross a stream bury
their millions in the river that they pass.’
Thus ended our talk for that time, and after events have given it
importance. I may return again to this subject.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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An English communist
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Friswell, James Hain
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 185-192 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From The Dark Blue 2. Attribution of journal title and date: Virginia Clark catalogue. The Dark Blue was a London-based literary magazine published monthly from 1871 to 1873.
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[s.n.]
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Conway Tracts
English Fiction
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
repairing the idols.
Mrs. Humphrey Ward’s Robert Elsmere is no less
eagerly read in America than in England.
The press
teems with criticisms, and the pulpits are discussing
the novel as though it were a theological treatise by
an eminent divine.
In view of this widespread interest,
the New York World sent a reporter to wait on
Colonel Ingersoll, whose views on religion are con
sidered of the highest importance. He commands an
immense audience in America. His lectures are listened
to by thousands wherever he goes, his pamphlets are
circulated wholesale, and his brilliant defence of Freethought against Mr. Gladstone and Cardinal Manning
has, if possible, placed him still higher m the public
esteem. Colonel Ingersoll received the World reporter
with his usual affability, and launched forth as follows
in answer to leading questions.
“ Why do people read a book like Robert Elsmere,
and why do they take any interest in if!” Simply
because they are not satisfied with the rehgion of our
day. The civilised world has outgrown the greater
�4
Repairing the Idols.
part of the Christian creed. Civilised people have lost
their belief in the reforming power of punishment.
They find that whips and imprisonment have but little
influence for good. The truth has dawned upon their
minds that eternal punishment is infinite cruelty—that
it can serve no good purpose, and that the eternity of
hell makes heaven impossible. That there can be in
this universe no perfectly happy place while there is a •
perfectly miserable place—that no infinite being can
be good who knowingly and, as one may say, wilfully
created myriads of human beings, knowing that they
would be eternally miserable. In other words, the
civilised man is greater, tenderer, nobler, nearer just
than the old idea of God. The ideal of a few thou
sand years ago is far below the real of to-day. No
good man now would do what Jehovah is said to have
done four thousand years ago, and no civilised human
being would now do what, according to the Christian
religion, Christ threatens to do at the day of judgment.
Has the Christian religion changed in theory of late
years, Colonel Ingersoll ?
A few years ago the Deists denied the inspiration of
the Bible on account of its cruelty. At the same time
they worshipped what they were pleased to call the God
of Nature. Now we are convinced that nature is as
cruel as the Bible, so that, if the’ God of Nature did
not write the Bible, this god at least has caused earth
quakes and pestilence and famine, and this god has
allowed millions of his children to destroy one another.
So that now we have arrived at the question—not as to
whether the Bible is inspired, and not as to whether
Jehovah is the real God, but whether there is a God or
�Hep airing the Idols.
5
not. The intelligence of Christendom to-day does not
believe in an inspired religion any more than it
believes in an inspired art or an inspired literature. If
there be an infinite God, inspiration in some particular
regard would be a patch—it would be the puttying of
a crack, the hiding of a defect—in other words, it
would show that the general plan was defective.
Do you consider any religion adequate ?
A good man, living in England, drawing a certain
salary for reading certain prayers on stated occasions,
for making a few remarks on the subject of religion,
putting on clothes of a certain cut, wearing a gown
with certain frills and flounces starched in an orthodox
manner, and then looking about him at the suffering
and agony of the world, would not feel satisfied that
he was doing anything of value to the human race.
In the first place, he would deplore his own weakness,
his own poverty, his inability to help his fellow men.
He would long every moment for wealth, that he
might feed the hungry and clothe the naked—for
knowledge, for miraculous power, that he might heal
the sick and the lame, and that he might give to the
deformed the beauty of proportion. He would begin
to wonder how a being of infinite goodness and infinite
power could allow his children to die, to suffer, to be
deformed by necessity, by poverty, to be tempted
beyond resistance ; how he could allow the few to live
in luxury and the many in poverty and want, and the
more he wondered the more useless and ironical would
seem to himself his sermons and his prayers.
Such a
man is driven to the conclusion that religion accom
plishes but little; that it creates as much want as it
�6
Repairing the Idols.
alleviates, and that it burdens the world with parasites.
Such a man would be forced to think of the millions
wasted in superstition. In other words, the inadequacy,
the uselessness, of religion would be forced upon his
mind. He would ask himself the question : “ Is it
possible that this is a divine institution ? Is this all
that man can do with the assistance of God ? Is this
the best ?”
That is a perfectly reasonable question, is it not,
Colonel Ingersoll?
The moment a man reaches the point where he asks
himself this question he has ceased to be an orthodox
Christian.
It will not do to say that in some other
world justice will be done. If God allows injustice to
triumph here, why not there ?
Robert Elsmere stands in the dawn of philosophy.
There is hardly light enough for him to see clearly; but
there is so much light that the stars in the night of
superstition are obscured.
You do not deny that a religious belief is a great
comfort ?
There is one thing that it is impossible for me to
comprehend. Why should anyone, when convinced
that Christianity is a superstition, have or feel a sense
of loss ? Certainly a man acquainted with England,
with London, having at the same time something like
a heart, must feel overwhelmed by the failure of what
is knjown as- Christianity. Hundreds of thousands
exist there without decent food, dwelling in tenements,
clothed with rags, familiar with every form of vulgar
vice, where the honest poor eat the crust that the
�Repairing the Idols.
i
7
vicious throw away. When, this man of intelligence,
of heart, visits the courts ; when he finds human liberty
a thing treated as of no value, and when he hears the
judge sentencing girls and boys to the penitentiary—
knowing that a stain is being put upon them that all
the tears of all the coming years can never wash away
—knowing, too, and feeling that this is done without
the slightest regret, without the slightest sympathy, as
a mere matter of form, and that the jndge puts this
brand of infamy upon the forehead of the convict just
as cheerfully as a Mexican brands his cattle ; and when
this man of intelligence and heart knows that these
poor people are simply the victims of society, the
unfortunates who stumble and over whose body rolls
the Juggernaut—he knows that there is, or at least
appears to be, no power above or below working for
righteousness—that from the heavens is stretched no
protecting hand. And when a man of intelligence and
heart in England visits the workhouse, the last resting
place of honest labor ; when he thinks that the young
man, without any great intelligence but with a good
constitution, starts in the morning of, his life for the
workhouse, and that it is impossible for the laboring
man, one who simply has his muscle, to save anything ;
that health is not able to lay anything by for the days
of disease—when the man of intelligence and heart
sees all this, he is compelled to say that the civilisation
of to-day, the religion of to-day, the charity of to-day
—no matter how much of good there may be behind
them or in them—are failures.
A few years ago people were satisfied when the
minister said : “ All this will be made even in another
�8
Tiepairing the Idols.
world; a crust-eater here will sit at the head of the
banquet there, and the king here will beg for the
crumbs that fall from the table there.” When this
was said the poor man hoped and the king laughed.
A few years ago the Church said to the slave : “ You
will be free in another world and your freedom will be
made glorious by the perpetual spectacle of your master
in hell.” But the people—that is, many of the people
—are no longer deceived by what once were considered
fine phrases. They have suffered so much that they no
longer wish to see others suffer, and no longer think of
the suffering of others as a source of joy to themselves.
The poor see that the eternal starvation of kings and
queens in another world will be no compensation for
what they have suffered here. The old religions appear
vulgar, and the ideas of rewards and punishments are
only such as would satisfy a cannibal chief or one of
his favorites.
Do you think the Christian religion has
xvorld better1
?
made the
For many centuries there has been preached and
taught in an almost infinite number of ways a super
natural religion. During all this time the world has
been in the care of the infinite, and yet every
imaginable vice has flourished, every imaginable pang
has been suffered, and every injustice has been done.
During all these years the priests have enslaved the
minds and the kings the bodies of men. The priests
did what they did in the name of God, and the kings
appealed to the same source of authority. Man suffered
as long as he could.
Revolution, reformation, was
simply a reaction, a cry from the poor wretch that was
�Repairing the Idols.
9
between the upper and the nether millstone. The liberty
of man has increased just in the proportion that the
authority of the gods has decreased. In other words
the wants of man, instead of the wishes of God, have,
inaugurated what we call progress, and there is this
difference : Theology is based upon the narrowest and
intensest form of selfishness. Of course, the theologian
knows, the Christian knows, that he can do nothing for
God; consequently all that he does must be and is for
himself, his object being to win the approbation of this
God, to the end that he may become a favorite. On the
other side, men touched not only by theii’ owfl misf ortunes
but by the misfortunes of others are moved not simply
by selfishness but by a splendid sympathy with their
fellow men.
“ Christianity certainly fosters charity’’ the reporter
suggested.
Nothing is more cruel than orthodox theology, nothing
more heartless than a charitable institution. For
instance, in England, think for a moment of the manner
in which charities are distributed, the way in which the
crust is flung at Lazarus. If that parable could be now
retold, the dogs would bite him. The same is true in
this country. The institution has nothing but contempt
for the one it relieves. The people in charge regard
the pauper as one who has wrecked himself. They feel
very much as a man would feel rescuing from the water
some hare-brained wretch who had endeavored to s wim
the rapids of Niagara—the moment they reach him
they begin to upbraid him for being such a fool. This
course makes charity a hypocrite, with every pauper for
its enemy.
�10
Repairing the Idols.
Mrs. Ward compelled Robert Elsmere to perceive,
in some slight degree, the failure of Christianity to do
away with vice and suffering, with poverty and crime.
We know that the rich care but little for the poor.
No matter how religious the rich may be, the sufferings
of their fellows have but little effect upon them. We
are also beginning to see that what is called charity
will never redeem this world. The poor man willing
to work, eager to maintain his independence, knows
that there is something higher than charity—that is to
say, justice.
He finds that many years before he was
born his coufltry was divided out between certain suc
cessful robbers, flatterers, cringers, and crawlers, and
that in consequence of such division not only himself
but a large majority of his fellow men are tenants,
renters, occupying the surface of the earth only at the
pleasure of others. He finds, too, that these people
who have done nothing and who do nothing have every
thing, and that those who do everything have but little.
He finds that idleness has the money and that the
toilers are compelled to bow to the idlers. He finds
also that the young men of genius are bribed by social
distinctions—unconsciously it may be, but still bribed
in a thousand ways. He finds that the church is a
kind of waste-basket into which are thrown the younger
sons of titled idleness.
Do you consider that society in general has been
made better by religious influence ?
Society is corrupted because the laurels, the titles,
are in the keeping and within the gift of the corrupters.
Christianity is not an enemy of this system it is in
�Repairing the Idols.
11
harmony with it. Christianity reveals to us a universe
presided over by an infinite autocrat—a universe with
out republicanism, without democracy—a universe
where all power comes from one and the same
source, and where everyone using authority is account
able, not to the people, but to this supposed source of
authority. Kings reign by divine right. Priests are
ordained in a divinely-appointed way—they do not get
their office from man. Man is their servant, not their
master.
'
In the story of Robert Elsmere all there is of Chris
tianity is left after an excision of the miraculous«
Theism remains, and the idea of a protecting provi
dence is left, together with a belief in the immeasurable
superiority of Jesus Christ.
That is to say, the
miracles are discarded for lack of evidence; not on the
ground that they are impossible, not on the ground
that they impeach and deny the integrity of cause and
effect, not on the ground that they contradict the selfevident proposition that an effect must have an efficient
cause, but like the Scotch verdict: 44 Not proven.’
It is an effort to save and keep in repair the dungeons
of the Inquisition for the sake of the beauty of the
vines that have overrun them. Many people imagine
that falsehoods may become respectable on account of
age, that a certain reverence goes with antiquity, and
that if a mistake is covered with the moss of senti
ment, it is altogether more credible than a parvenu
fact. They endeavor to introduce the idea of aris
tocracy into the world of thought, believing, and
honestly believing that a falsehood long believed is far
superior to a truth that is generally denied.
�12
Repairing the Idols.
If Robert Elsmere's views were commonly adopted,
what would be the effect ?
The new religion of Elsmere is, after all, only a
system of outdoor relief, an effort to get successful
piracy to give up^larger percentage for the relief of its
victims. The aoolition of the system is not dreamed
of. A civilised minority could not by any possibility
be happy while a majority of the world were miserable;
a civilised majority could not be happy while a minority
were miserable. As a matter of fact, a civilised world
could not be happy while one man was really miserable.
At the foundation of civilisation is justice—that is to
say, the giving of an equal opportunity to all the chil
dren of men.
Secondly, there can be no civilisation in the highest
sense until sympathy becomes universal. We must
have a new definition for success. We must have
new ideals.
The man who succeeds in amassing
wealth, who gathers money for himself, is not a success.
It is an exceedingly low ambition to be rich, to excite
the envy of others, or for the sake of the vulgar power
it gives to triumph over others. Such men are failures.
So the man who wins fame, position, power, and wins
these for the sake of himself, and wields this power not
for the elevation of his fellow men, but simply to con
trol, is a miserable failure: He may dispense thousands
or millions in charity, and his charity may he prompted
by the meanest part of his nature—using it simply as
a bait to catch more fish, and to prevent the rising tide
of indignation that might overwhelm him. Men who
steal millions and then give a small percentage to the
Lord to gain the praise of the clergy, and to bring the
�Repairing the Idols.
13
salvation of their souls within the possibilities of im
agination, are all failures.
Robert Elsemere gains our affection and our applause
to the extent that he gives up what are known as
orthodox views, and his wife Catharine retains our
respect in the proportion that she lives the doctrine
that Elsmere preaches. By doing what she believes to
be right, she gains our forgiveness for her creed. One
is astonished that she can be as good as she is, believing
as she does. The utmost stretch of her intellectual
charity is to allow the old wine to be put in a new
bottle, and yet she regrets the absence of the old bottle
—she really believes that the bottle is the important
thing -that the wine is but a secondary consideration.
She misses the label, and not having perfect confidence
in her own taste, she does not feel quite sure that the
wine is genuine.
What, on the whole, is your judgment of the hook ?
I think the book conservative. It is an effort to save
something—a few shreds and patches and raveilings—
from the wreck. Theism is difficult to maintain. Why
should we expect an infinite being to do better in an
other world than he has done and is doing in this ? If
he allows the innocent to suffer here, why not there ?
If he allows rascality to succeed in this world, why not
in the next?
To believe in God and to deny his
personality is an exceedingly vague foundation for a
consolation. If you insist on his personality and power,
then it is impossible to account for what happens.
Why should an infinite God allow some of his children
to enslave others ? Why should he allow a child of
�14
Repairing the Idols.
his to burn another child of his, under the impression
that such a sacrifice was pleasing to him ?
Unitarianism lacks, the motive power.
Orthodox
people who insist that nearly everybody is going, ty .hell,
and that it is their duty to do what little, they, can-to
save their souls, have what you might call a spur to
action. We can imagine a philanthropic man engaged
in the business of throwing ropes to persons about to
go over the falls of Niagara, but we can hardly think
of his carrying on the business after becoming con
vinced that there are no falls, or that people go oyer
them in perfect safety. In this country the question
has come up whether all the heathen are bound to be
damned unless they believe in the Gospel. Many
admit that the heathen will be saved if they are good
people, and that they will not be damned for not
believing something that they never heard. The really
orthodox people—that is to say, the missionaries—
instantly see that this doctrine destroys their business.
They take the ground that there is but one way to be
saved—you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ—
and they are willing to admit—and to cheerfully admit,
that the heathen for many generations have gone in an
unbroken column down to eternal wrath.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Repairing the idols
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: [3]-14 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Date of publication and imprint from Stein (Item 61a). New York World interview with Ingersoll, reprinted. Mrs Humphrey Ward's (Mary Augusta Ward) novel 'Robert Elsmere' which inspired Ingersoll's lecture, tells of an Oxford clergyman who begins to doubt the doctrines of the Anglican Church after encountering the writings of the German rationalists including Schelling and David Strauss. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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N388
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Literature
Rationalism
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Literature
Mrs Humphry Ward
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Robert Elsmere
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bdc4f010af17dca8ed82762b440d0e67
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Text
Which are Hamlet’s ‘ Dozen
or Sixteen Lines ’ ?
By
W. T. MALLESON, B.A.,
UNIV. COLL., LONDON,
AND
J. R. SEELEY, M.A.,
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE’ UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, ONE OF THE
VICE-PRESIDENTS OF THE NEW SHAKSPERE SOCIETY.
PAPERS READ BEFORE
THE NEVE SHHKSPERE SOCIETY,
AT ITS
ffilefeenti; JHietinfl,
FRIDAY, DECEMBER n,
I
AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.
i
874,
�PUBLICATIONS
OF THE
NEW SHAKSPERE SOCIETY.
Series I. Transactions. Part I, containing 4 Papers, and editioflb
of the genuine parts of Timon, and Pericles, by the Rev. F. G-.
Fleay, M.A., with Discussions on the Papers.
Series II. Plays. The First two Quartos of Pomeo and Juliet,
1597 and 1599, in a. simple Reprints; b. Parallel Texts,
arranged so as to show their Differences, and with Collations
of all the Quartos and Folio ; all edited by P. A. Daniel, Esq.
[6. was presented to the Society by UP. IT. Prince Leopold,
one of its Vice-Presidents.^
Series IV.
Shakspere Allusion-Books.
Part I. 1592-8 A.n.
(Greenes Groatesworth of Wit [written in 1592], 1596 ; Henry
Chettle’s 4 Kind-Harts Dreame ’ [written in 1593]; 4 Englaudes
- Mourning Garment ’ [1603] ; A Mourneful Dittie [1603] ;
five sections from Francis Meres’s Palladis Tamia, 1598, &c.
&c.) ; edited by C. Mansfield Ingleby, Esq., LL.D.
Publications of the New Shakspere Society now at Press.
Series I. Transactions. Part II, containing Papers- by J. W.
Hales, Esq., M.A., the Rev. F. G. Fleay, M.A., and Richard
Simpson, Esq., B.A.; with Discussions on the Papers.
Series II. Pomeo and Juliet, c. a Revised Edition of the Quarto
Text of 1599, collated with the other Quartos and the Folio ;
edited by P. A. Daniel, Esq., with Notes and Introduction.
-Uenry V., a. Reprints of the Quarto and Folio; b. Parallel Texts
of the Quarto and Folio ; c. a Revised Edition, with Notes and
Introduction; the whole edited by Dr Brinsley Nicholson.
Series III. Originals and Analogues. Part I. a. The Tragicall
Historye of Romeus and Juliet, written first in Italian by
Bandell, and nowe in Englishe by Ar[thur] Br[ooke], 1562 ;
edited by P. A. Daniel, Esq. b. The goodly hystory of the
true and constant loue between Rhomeo and J ulietta; from
Painter’s Palace of Pleasure, 1567; edited by P. A. Daniel,
Esq.
Series VI. Shakspere’s England. William Harrison’s Pescription
of England, 1577, 1587, edited from its two versions by F. J.
Furnivall, M.A.
Publications Suggested.
Series . II. 1. The Two Noble Kinsmen, to be edited by Harold
Littledale, Esq. 2. Cymbeline, to be edited by W. J. Craig,
Esq., M.A., Trinity College, Dublin.
Parallel Texts of the Imperfect sketches of b. Hamlet and its
�WHICH ARE HAMLET’S
‘DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES’?
BY W. T. MALLESON, B.A., UNIV. COLL., LONDON,
AND
J. R. SEELEY, M.A., PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE UNIV.
OF CAMBRIDGE.
�466
XII.
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S ‘DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES’?
BY W. T. MALLESON, B.A., UNIV. COLL., LONDON,
AND
J. R. SEELEY, M.A., PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OE
CAMBRIDGE.
{Read. at the eleventh Meeting of the Society, Friday, Fee. 11, 1874.)
[In the following discussion, the suggestion that Hamlet’s ‘ dozen or sixteen lines ’
occur in the long speech of the player-king is spoken of as if it were a new one.
It occurred to me independently : and though I could scarcely believe that no one
had thought of it before, yet the editions that happened to be within my reach
knew nothing of it, and I found it to be new to all my Shaksperian friends, I now
find that I was right in thinking that it could not possibly have been reserved
for me to make such a discovery, and that the credit of it belongs to Mr and Mrs
Cowden Clarke, who published it long since in their annotated edition of Shakspere.
I am happy to have learned this in time to save myself from even a momentary
appearance of claiming what does not belong to me. Mr and Mrs Cowden Clarke
have also anticipated some of my arguments, as will be seen by their note, which
I now reprint.—J. R. Seeley, March 10, 1875.
Act III. Sc. ii. Speech of the player-king : * Purpose is but the slave to memory,’
to ‘ their ends none of our own.’
„We have an idea that this is the passage ‘ of some dozen or sixteen lines ’ which
Hamlet has proposed to ‘ set down and insert ’ in the play, asking the player
whether he could ‘ study ’ it for the occasion. The style of the diction is markedly
different from the remainder of the dialogue belonging to this acted play of ‘ The
Murder of Gonzago ’ ; and it is signally like Hamlet’s own argumentative mode.
‘ This world is not for aye,’ the thoughts upon the fluctuations of ‘ love ’ and
‘ fortune,’ and the final reflection upon the contrary current of ‘ our wills and
fates,’ with the overthrow of our ‘devices,’ and the ultimate diversity between
our intentionsand their ‘ends,’ are as if proceeding from the prince himself. His
motive in writing these additional lines for insertion, and getting the player to
deliver them, we take to be a desire that they shall serve to divert attention from
the special passages directed at the king, and to make these latter seem less
pointed. We have fancied that this is Shakespere’s intention, because of the em
phatic variation in the style just here. Observe how very different are the myth
ological allusions to ‘ Phcebus,’ ‘ Neptune,’ ‘ Tellus,’ ‘ Hymen,’ ‘ Hecate,’ and the
stiff sentential inversions of ‘ about the world have times twelve thirties been,’
‘ discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must,’ &c.; and, moreover, observe how
exactly the couplet commencing the player-king’s speech, ‘ I do believe,’ &c., and
the couplet concluding it, * To think thou wilt,’ &c., would follow on conjoinedly,
were the intervening lines (which we suppose intended to be those written by
Hamlet) not inserted.’—From Cassell's Illustrated Shakespere, edited by Charles
and Mary Cowden Clarke, Vol. III. p. 415.]
�XJI. 1.
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S ‘ DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ’ ?
467
I. MR MALLES ON'S ARGUMENT.
Ha/mlet. Dost thou hear me, old friend ; can you play the murther of
Gtonzago?
1 Player, Ay, my lord.
Ha/mlet. We’ll have’t to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a
speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down, and insert in’t ?
could you not ?
1 Player. Ay, my lord.—Hamlet, Act II. Sc. ii. (lines 562-9).
A short time ago appeared in the Academy, a statement written
by Mr Purnivall, that Professor Seeley had suggested that the
* dozen or sixteen lines,’ inserted by Hamlet in the sub-play of the
‘ Murder of Gonzago,’ might be found in the following speech of
the Player-King, Act III. Sc. ii. :—
I do believe, you think what now you speak ;
But, what we do determine oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory ;
Of violent birth, but poor validity :
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree;
But fall unshaken, when they mellow be.
Most necessary ’tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt :
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy;
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament,
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye ; nor ’tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change ;
For ’tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark, his favourite flies ;
The poor advanc’d makes friends of enemies.
,
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend :
For who not needs shall never lack a friend ;
And who in want a hollow friend doth try
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But, orderly to end where I begun,—
Our wills and fates do so contrary run,
That our devices still are overthrown :
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own :
So think thou wilt no second husband wed ;
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is de^.
196
199
203
207
211
215
219
223
225
These are very interesting lines, bnt they reflect, as Gervinus
points out, not upon the murdering usurping King, but upon Hamlet
himself; if they are those Hamlet wrote, we find him turning aside
�468
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S ‘ DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ’ ?
XII. 1.
from the immediate purpose of the player’s performance, which was
to ‘ catch the conscience of the King,’ in order to brood over his own
character, and in words of his own to point the moral of the play of
Hamlet:—
But what we do determine oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory ;
Of violent birth, but poor validity.
And again:—
Our wills and fates do so contrary run,
That our devices still are overthrown :
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.
One must confess, that there would be nothing foreign to Ham
let’s character in thus suddenly putting aside action for disquisition ;
yet when he is eagerly ordering the performance of the Murder of
Gonzago for ‘to-morrow night,’ the earliest possible time, and adds
‘ You could for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines
which I would set down and insert in’t ? ’, it is difficult to believe
that he is only anxiously seeking an opportunity of dissertating upon
man’s feebleness of purpose :—What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending doth the purpose lose.
And on this point we are not left to conjecture only; the
terrible soliloquy beginning, ‘Now I am alone, 0 what a rogue
and peasant slave am I,’ immediately follows his interview with the
players, and shews clearly what was in his mind, when he proposed
his addition to the play.
About my brains 1 I have heard,
That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul, that presently
They have proclaimed their malefactions ;
For murther, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I’ll have these players
Play something like the murther of my father,
Before mine uncle : I’ll observe his looks ;
I’ll tent him to the quick ; if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil : and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and, perhaps,
Out of my weakness and my melancholy
(As he is very potent with such spirits),
�XII. 1.
WHICH ARE hamlet’s 1 DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES’?
469
Abuses me to damn me : I'll have grounds
More relative than this : The play’s the thing,
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.
The plot of this play already resembled the black crime that had
been revealed to Hamlet alone, and his hope was that his lines might
drive the dreadful resemblance home to the very heart of the mur
derer, so that the guilty creature sitting at the play might if possible
be driven to proclaim aloud his ‘ malefaction,’ or, if not that, at
least so to lose self command as to betray his guilt to the eyes which
would be ‘rivetted to his face.’
How important, for this end, the speech was, we may learn from
Hamlet’s special instructions to the players for its delivery:—
Speak the speech, I pray you, as Ipronounced it to you, trippingly on the
tongue : but if you mouth it, as many of you players do, I had as lief the
town-crier had spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much—your hand
thus : but use all gently : for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say)
the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may
give it smoothness. 0, it offends me to the soul, to see a robustious periwigpated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the
groundlings ; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable
dumb shows and noise : I could have such a fellow whipped for o’er-doing
Termagant; it out-herods Herod : pray you, avoid it.
From this, too, we may gather something of the nature of the
lines; there was in them for certain the torrent, tempest, and whirl
wind of passion, a passion which Hamlet was very anxious that no
robustious periwig-pated actor should be allowed to tear to tatters;
and if this be, as I think, beyond a question, let the reader consider
whether in the philosophic lines suggested by Professor Seeley, even
the most 1 robustious ’ fellow could find anything of passion, with
which 1 to split the ears of the groundlings.’
Take now the conversation with Horatio just before the play
commences.
Hamlet says :—
There is a play to-night before the king ;
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee of my father’s death.
I prithee, when thou seest that act a foot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe mine uncle : if his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen,
And my imaginations are as foul
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XII. 1.
WHICH ARE hamlet’s ‘ DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ’ 1
As Vulcan’s stithe. Give him heedful note :
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face ;
And, after, we will both our judgments join
To censure of his seeming.
If the remainder of the play of Hamlet had by some calamity
been lost and it stopped here, wrould any one have doubted that this
‘ one speech ’ in this ‘ one scene ’ must have been the speech of
Hamlet’s writing 1
When the time of the representation approaches, Hamlet, in
terrible suppressed excitement, lies down among the audience at
Ophelia’s feet, and seems to relieve the tension of his mind by gross
and bitter jesting. Such words from Hamlet, the prince and scholar
to poor Ophelia, who had 1 sucked the honey of his music vows,’
appear at first almost inexplicable. It is quite insufficient to say that
the license of that age admitted expressions which would be shocking
now ;—No other lover in Shakspere uses such language; Rosalind,
Juliet, Miranda are quite otherwise addressed. Nor can I endure
to find here any support for Goethe’s theory, that the strong defence
of perfect purity was at all wanting to her who had been Hamlet’s
‘ soul’s idol.’ We must remember that at this moment Hamlet’s
heart is full of the infidelity of his mother as well as of the murder
of his father. Even before he had learnt from the Ghost the full
measure of his mother’s guilt, he had said in his anguish at her
marriage within a month—‘ a little month’—after his father’s death,
‘ Frailty thy name is, woman; ’ and when the Ghost has left him he
first apostrophises her, ‘ 0 most pernicious woman,’ and puts the
murderer, ‘ the smiling damned villain,’ in the second place. His
mother has destroyed his faith in every woman, he believes virtue
to be ‘ as wax,’ he separates from Ophelia, and bids her enter a
nunnery; and now, when in spite of himself he feels her attractions
and lies down at her feet, he reminds himself by insults and coarse
jokes of the frailty and corruption of women.
But let us go on to the performance itself; it begins, as did the
old moralities, with a dumb show:—
Enter a King and a Queen, very lovingly ; the Queen embracing him.
She kneels and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and
declines his head upon her neck ; lays him down upon a bank of flowers; she,
�XII.
1. WHICH ARE hamlet’s ‘DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES’?
471
seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes oft his crown,
kisses it, and pours poison in the King’s ears, and exit. The Queen returns ;
finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The poisoner, with some
two or three mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead
body is carried away. The poisoner woos the Queen with gifts ; she seems
loath and unwilling awhile, but, in the end, accepts his love. (Exeunt.)
‘ Anon conies in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours
poison in the King's ears.' Here beyond doubt we have the “ one
scene ” coining near the circumstance of the death of Hamlet’s father
as the Ghost describes it:—
‘ Sleeping within mine orchard,
My custom always in the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of mine ears did pour
The leprous distilment.’
Ill fact the parallel is so exact as to make one suspect that
Hamlet altered the manner of the murder in the old play to make it
tally precisely with the awful secret fact. If not, it is strange that
so odd, if not impossible, a way of committing murder should have
occurred in both the plays.
Here then I believe we should look for Hamlet’s addition, the “ one
speech,” the crisis of his plot, and it is here during the representation
that his excitement becomes painfully intense, and almost uncon
trollable, so that, when Lu cianus the murderer enters, Hamlet at
Ophelia’s feet strangely interrupts, calling aloud :—
This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.
Although interruptions of ‘ poor players ’ by gallants of the
Court and great people were in those times common enough, one can
hardly help pausing to commiserate the actor thus unexpectedly
greeted by his patron at the important moment of his first entrance.
Lucianus is the principal character of the piece, the Villain on whose
daring crime and ready smooth-faced plausibility the plot turns, and
is doubtless the part that would have been given to the leading
tragedian, probably to the very actor who had previously so finely
recited JEneas’ description of the rugged Pyrrhus, and of whom
Hamlet, an excellent judge of acting, said that he
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XII.
1. WHICH ARE HAMLET’S i DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES’?
Could force his soul so to his own conceit,
That from her working all his visage wanned ;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit.
Well, Lucianus, recovering as he best might from the abrupt
announcement of his name and quality, proceeds with the business
of his part, taking off the crown (as above) from the sleeping king,
kissing it, and exerting himself so to force his soul that all his visage
might wear a murderous aspect, when Hamlet, now in the very agony
and fever of his impatience, interrupts him again, with :—
Begin, murderer ; leave thy damnable faces and begin.
The croaking raven
Doth bellow for revenge.
Come ;—
Then Lucianus, thus adjured, with all the self-possession he can
retain, does begin :—
Thought black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing ;
Confederate season, else no creature seeing :
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property,
On wholesome life usurp immediately.
{Pours the poison into the sleeper's ears.)
Hamlet {interrupting again).
He poisons him i’ the garden for his estate. His name’s
Gonzago ; the story is extant, and writ in choice Italian :
You shall see anon, how the murtherer gets the love of
Gonzago’s wife.
Ophelia. The king rises.
Hamlet. What! frighted with false fire !
Queen. How fares my lord ?
Pol. Give o’er the play.
King. Give me some lights—away !
All. Lights, lights, lights !
{Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio
Hamlet. Why let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play ;
For some must watch, while some must sleep;
So runs the world away.
Would not this, Sir, and a forest of feathers (if the rest of my fortunes tuna
Turk with me), with two Provincial roses on my razed Shoes, get me a fellow
ship in the cry of players, Sir ?
Horatio. Half a share.
Hamlet. A whole one,—ay.
�XII. 1.
WHICH ARE hamlet’s i2
DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ’ 1
473
And then again :—
Hamlet. 0 good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand
pound. Didst perceive ?
Horatio. Very well, my lord.
Hamlet. Upon the talk of the poisoning.
Horatio. I did very well note hiin.
It is of course to the startling dramatic success of his play
altering in piercing the King’s conscience that Hamlet refers when he
jestingly says that it would get him a fellowship in a cry of players.
The playwright who would tinker old plays as well as write new,
was in Shakspere’s time a very valuable member of a company of
players, and certainly the interpolated passage containing 4 the talk
of the poisoning ’ had had a wonderful effect.
I submit then that Hamlet’s addition to the play begins with the
speech of Lucianus. It contained probably more than the half
dozen lines which were all Lucianus was able to deliver before
Hamlet a third time interrupted him, and the King rose frighted
with false fire. After the murder, and before the entrance of the
Player Queen, was Lucianus perhaps to drop some words hinting at
his next aim, the seduction to a sudden second marriage of that
4 seeming virtuous queen 1 ’ Were perhaps fear and horror at finding
himself at last an actual murderer to take possession of his soul ?
Whence are those strange words of Hamlet, 4 The croaking raven
doth bellow for revenge,’ which he seems to utter as a sort of
cue to Lucianus, and yet they are not in Lucianus’ short speech ?
Were they part of Hamlet’s own lines, which were to be subse
quently uttered, but which came whirling first to their author’s
excited brain 1 If so, even if it were certainly so, it would be 4 to
consider too curiously’ to endeavour to reconstruct any of the neverdelivered portion of the speech. But wherever the words come from1
- from Hamlet’s unspoken lines, or, as is more probable, from some
1 Mr F. J. Furnivall thinks these words may be an allusion to the Old
Hamlet noticed in Lodge’s Wits Miserie, 1596, ‘the ghost which cried so
miserably at the theater like an oister wife, “ Hamlet revenge," ’ and says the
player would catch the reference at once. Mr Richard Simpson, on the other
hand, considers the allusion to be to two lines in the old play, The True
Tragedy of Richard III., ‘ The screeking Raven sits croking for Revenge ;
Whole heads of beasts comes bellowing for Revenge.’
2
�474
XII. 1.
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S (DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES’?
old play in the Pistol vein, known to the public then, lost now—what Hamlet means by them is plain enough. The Ghost is again
present to his mind. The Spirit whom he has doubted cries out once
more for revenge. In a moment the murderer will be put to the
question, to moral torture, all will be clear, and Hamlet ‘ know his
course.’ At such a crisis the actor’s delay, however artistic, is intol
erable ; he shouts to him to begin, that he may be certain of his
Uncle’s guilt and sweep to his revenge.
Hemember, too, that the Raven is the Danish typical bird, and
therefore no unfit emblem of ‘the majesty of buried Denmark;’—as
fitting at any rate, one might urge, if driven hard, as ‘ True penny,’
‘ Old Mole,’ and ‘Fellow in the Cellarage.’
The plot succeeds, the murderer discloses himself, the ghost is
believed; but Hamlet fails, and in the next scene but one the Ghost
re-appears visibly to his ‘ tardy son ’:—
Do not forget; this visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
Lastly, is there in the lines themselves anything to make us say,
‘ Not by Hamlet ?’ The style is certainly stiff, cumbrous, and loaded
with adjectives, but Hamlet would naturally try to imitate the stilted
style of the rest of the play as in its first lines:—
Player King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart gone round
Neptune’s salt wash, and Tellus’ orbed ground;
And thirty dozen moons with borrow’d sheen,
About the world have times twelve thirties been ;
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.
And one may even add that Hamlet himself in his letter ‘to
the celestial and my souls idol the most beautified Ophelia,’ shows
that he did not use to shrink from a string of adjectives even when
they led him to so ill a phrase as ‘ most beautified.’
Of one thing we may be certain, that the great Master did not
write at random, and that since he lays so much stress upon Ham
let’s inserted lines, refers to them so often, and makes so much of
the plot turn upon them, his own intention in the matter must have
been perfectly clear to himself.
If this be so, they ought with due patience to be discoverable by
�XII. 2.
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S ‘ DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ’ ?
475
us. I shall be glad if I am thought to have contributed something to
the true solution of a little problem which if not important is at
least interesting.
W. T. Malleson.
II. PROFESSOR SEELEY’S COMMENTS ON MR MALLESON'S
PAPER, AND ON THE PLA Y.
My dear Furnivall,
You will remember that I did not pronounce any particular
passage in the sub-play to be the ‘ 12 or 16 lines ’ of Hamlet. What I
did was simply to say, in conversation with you, that I thought I knew
which the lines of Hamlet were, and to ask you to try whether you
could not identify them also. You did try, and laid your finger at
once upon the very lines I had in view.1 I mention these facts for
two reasons. First, because I think my identification of secondary
importance, compared to my observation that here is a Shaksperian
problem which has been overlooked,2 that Shakspere evidently
meant us to ask which the ‘ 12 or 16 lines’ were, and that appa
rently no one (except Mr and Mrs C. Clarke) has thought of doing
so. Secondly, the identification gains a good deal of probability
from the fact that two persons—who did not know of Mr and Mrs
C. Clarke’s note—made it without any concert.
I acknowledge a good deal of weight in some of Mr Malleson’s
objections, but I think I can answer them, and they have not shaken
my opinion.
Let me begin by stating the case in favour of the ‘ 12 or 16 lines’
being some of those which make up the long speech of the FlayerKing that begins:—
I do believe you think what now you speak 1
In all such discussions there is great danger of running too much
into mere speculation and conjectural interpretations of character.
1 This was mainly because Professor Seeley had also told me that the lines
contained Hamlet’s explanation of his own character.—F. J. F.
2 Except by Mr and Mrs Cowden Clarke ; see p. 466.
�476
XII. 2.
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S ‘ DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES’’'!
For this reason I think it most important at the outset to consider
what characteristics the inserted speech we are in search of must
necessarily have in order that we may not have recourse to conjecture
at any rate sooner than is necessary.
There are two such characteristics, then.
(1) It must consist of some 12 or 16 lines.
(2) Being an insertion, it must be such a speech as can be removed
without affecting the action of the play.
Now these two characteristics belong to the passage above
referred to, and to that passage alone. The speech of the PlayerKing consists in all of 30 lines. The next longest speech, that
beginning ‘ So many journies may the sun and moon,’ consists of
only twelve.
It is evidently part of the plan that the sub-play
should be written in short speeches, for Hamlet is made to
ridicule the extreme shortness of the prologue, ‘ as brief as woman’s
love ! ’
This single long speech is therefore conspicuously exceptional.
It cannot all be spared—the Player-King must by the necessity of
the position say something to the same effect—and if it could all be
spared it could hardly be the insertion, for it would be too long,
30 lines instead of 12 or 16. But it is quite easy to spare about
that number of lines from the middle of it, and such a retrench
ment would bring the speech to about the average length of the
speeches in the sub-play.
As this passage not only answers the conditions, but is the only
passage which does, it might seem unnecessary to add another word.
But this assumes that Hamlet’s insertion is actually to be found at
full length in the sub-play as it is acted. Now of course it is pos
sible, as the sub-play is interrupted in the acting, that the passage in
question belongs either entirely to the part which was unacted, or
partly so, that is, that the speech which was interrupted by the
rising of the King would, if it had not been so interrupted, have ex
tended to 12 or 16 lines. This latter is Mr Malleson’s theory, and as
I admit it to be not impossible, we must look for additional evidence.
This brings us to the question, whether the passage whose claims
I support answers the other probable conditions as well as I have
�XII. 2.
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S ‘ DOZEN OH SIXTEEN LINES ’ I
shown that it answers the two necessary conditions.
477
Is it such
aa insertion as Hamlet would be likely to make either from
the object he has in view, or, if we must enter into that, from his
character ?
Now one part of this question, and that the most difficult part,
we can fortunately answer at once. It is admitted by Mr Malleson
that the lines in question are strikingly in the character of Hamlet,
so strikingly that, in fact, he calls them a dissertation on Hamlet’s
character. I do not think they are that ; I think they are a disserta
tion on his mother’s character ; but, then, they are just such a disserta
tion as Hamlet would write, for they explain her weakness by those
general reflections about the changeableness of human purpose, and
the feebleness of human conviction, which are so usual with him. I
think there can be no doubt that if we wished to select from the
sub-play the lines most characteristic of Hamlet we should fix on
these without a moment’s hesitation.
But the speech may answer very well to Hamlet’s general cha
racter, and yet not be such as to serve the particular purpose with
which he inserts a speech.
This is the main point in Mr Malleson’s argument, and it seems
at first sight a strong objection—‘ Hamlet’s object in inserting a speech
is to charge the King with murder, to draw the moral of the play,
and drive it home upon the King’s conscience. The speech in
question, however in other respects it may be suitable to Hamlet’s
character, cannot be the speech inserted by him, because it does
nothing of this kind.’
Now it is evident enough that Hamlet’s object in having the play
acted is to work upon the King’s conscience and bring out his guilt ;
but how does it appear that this is the object with which he inserts
the speech?
Mr Malleson says, ‘ The plot of the play already resembled the
black crime that had been revealed to Hamlet alone, and his hope
was that his lines might drive the resemblance home to the very
heart of the murderer.’ Certainly Hamlet hoped that the play would
have this effect ; but where does Mr Malleson find that he hoped 7zZa
lines would have this effect ?
Mr Malleson puts this as if it were a
�478
XII. 2.
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S 1 DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ’ 1
matter of course, but if he will reflect I think he will find, that he
has taken it for granted without any reason.
I cannot imagine how it could occur to Hamlet that there was
any occasion for inserting a speech with this object. The play might
surely be trusted to do its own work. The King’s conscience was to
be worked upon by a representation of an action of which not only
the results and motives were similar, but which was in itself actually
identical with that committed by himself.
He had. murdered his
sleeping brother by pouring poison into his ear; he is now to see
poison poured into the ear of a sleeping uncle on the stage. I can
not imagine how any speech could make the application plainer. The
hint was surely broad enough; in fact, it seems a little too broad, for it
is difficult to understand how the King could allow matters to go so
far, and why he did. not break up the play as soon as the dumb show
had informed him what the action was to be.
Has Shakspere, then, said anywhere that the inserted speech had
this object? Mr Malleson quotes one expression, which looks no
doubt a little like it:—
If his occulted guilt
Do not itself discover in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen, &c.
This 1 one speech ’ does no doubt remind us of the f speech that
I would set down and insert in it,’ but after all why should it be this
particular speech more than any other ? I confess I think it can be
shown not to be by the method of ‘reductio ad absurdum.’
For
this 1 one speech ’ in which the King’s guilt discovers itself is the
speech beginning :—
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing.
Now it is impossible that this speech, at least as it stands, can be
the inserted speech, for it satisfies none of the conditions. It is not
12 or 16 lines, but only six; it is not an inserted speech, but it
belongs essentially to the action, and the play could not exist
without it. Mr Malleson, seeing this, tries to represent these six
lines, not exactly as the inserted speech of Hamlet, but as the
beginning of it, and supposes that the rest would have followed had
�' XII.
2. WHICH ARE HAMLET’S ‘ DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ’ ?
479
not the King broken up the play. It is impossible to suppose exactly
this, for the six lines in question form only one sentence, and must
therefore belong entirely to the play itself in its original form, unless
we suppose, what I think no one will suppose, that the murder was
to be done in dumb show. We must therefore imagine, not part of
Hamlet’s inserted speech, but the whole of it, to have been broken
off by the King’s rising, and if so it turns out after all that the King’s
guilt is not discovered by Hamlet’s inserted speech, but by lines
coming just before it. This seems to me a conclusive proof that the
‘ one speech ’ in the passage above quoted is not to be identified with
the ‘speech of 12 or 16 lines, which I would set down and insert
in it.’
Thus there remains no reason at all for supposing that the object
of Hamlet’s inserted speech was to work upon the King’s conscience.
Mr Malleson seems to have been led to take it for granted by the
rout Hamlet makes about his anxiety to be quite sure of the King’s
guilt, to be quite sure that the ghost is not a tempter. He pictures
Hamlet as in a state of wild excitement throughout the scene, as
having his thoughts intensely fixed upon this question of the murder,
and therefore he thinks it revoltingly improbable that in this state
of mind Hamlet should write a speech not about the murder at all,
but on his mother’s fickleness. But surely I am not singular in
believing that these professions of Hamlet are not to be taken
seriously. His misgivings that the ghost may be a tempter, that the
King may not be guilty after all, are just like his resolution later in
the play, not to kill the King at a moment when he will be likely to
go to heaven, mere pretences intended to excuse delay and inaction.
He is no doubt interested in watching the effect of his experiment
upon the King’s mind, and very triumphant when it proves success
ful, but I do not believe that his thoughts are absorbed by that sub
ject in the way Mr Malleson supposes. In fact I take a very different
view of the state of his mind.
It seems to me that Shakspere
takes great pains to impress upon us that the uncle’s guilt and the
duty of punishing it are an annoying subject with Hamlet, that
they weigh upon his mind without interesting it, and that his only
desire is to postpone and keep at arm’s length everything connected
�480
XII. 2.
with them.
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S ‘ DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES’ ?
Hamlet complains that he cannot feel proper resent
ment for ‘ a dear father murdered/ that the player is more interested
in an imaginary Hecuba than he in such a dreadful reality, and he
tries to rouse himself into a passion by violent abuse of his uncle.
But you see how artificial the language is, and that his real feeling
for his uncle is only contempt, that he regards him simply as a
vulgar knave, whom there is no satisfaction in thinking about, and
no comfort even in hating.
So far from supposing that the inserted
speech ought by rights to be about this uncle, I should be very
much puzzled to find that Hamlet’s private reflections had been so
much occupied about him, as would be implied in his writing 12 or
16 lines about him, to make clear what was already as clear as the
day, or to 1 bring home,’ as Mr Malleson says, what was brought
home already.
But is there no subject about which Hamlet feels strongly
in which we can believe him to be so much interested as to
write verses on it ?
Certainly there is, and it is precisely the
subject with which the lines I identify with [Hamlet’s inserted
speech deal; namely, the conduct of his mother.
It is this
which really fills his mind, and it is because he is so intensely
pre-occupied with this, that he is so languid about what he feels
ought to engage his attention more. Before even he suspected
his uncle’s guilt, before the appearance of the ghost, he is shown to
us so much depressed as to think of suicide on account of his
mother’s levity; and when he has his mother face to face with him
he shows an energy and vehemence we might have thought foreign
to his character. As Mr Malleson very truly says, it is his mother
who, by putting him out of humour with all women, causes him to
behave so strangely to Ophelia, and the coarseness of his language
to her in this very scene shows that he is brooding on the subject at
this particular moment. It is, then, I maintain, a, priori, most likely,
from what we know of Hamlet’s feelings, that this would be the
subject of his inserted speech.
But we must consider Shakspere’s objects as well as Hamlet’s.
Supposing the speech to be on the subject of the murder, even if it
answered Hamlet’s purpose, it was of no use to the poet. It would
�XII. 2.
WHICH ARE HAMLEt’s ‘DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES’?
481
be merely an additional means, very superfluous as I think, of
exposing the King’s guilt; about Hamlet’s character and views, it
would tell us nothing that we did not know before j it would not
help the poet forward at all in his difficult exposition. Quite other*
wise if the speech dealt with the mother, not with the uncle; then
it has point; then we understand why the poet introduces it.
It is
a broad hint to the reader, and it was important to multiply such
hints as much as possible, that we are not to trust Hamlet’s profes*
sions, that the experiment of the play, with all its parade of in
genuity and the vengeance which is to follow the King’s exposure, is
a mere blind by which he hides both from himself and from Horatio
that he does not intend to act at all, and that he means to go on as
he has begun, brooding interminably upon the frailty of his mother,
the probable frailty of Ophelia, and the worthlessness of all
women.
Notice that when the speech which I call Hamlet’s insertion and
the Player-Queen’s short answer to it have been delivered, Hamlet
turns to his mother and says, ‘Madam, how like you this play?’
This I take to be Sliakspere’s quiet hint to the reader that he is to
mark these speeches especially, and that there is something particular
in them.
To sum up, then, my case is this :—
(1) In the long speech of the Player-King may be found a
passage of ‘ 12 or 16 lines.’
(2) This passage can be omitted without damage to the action.
(3) No other such passage can be found in the sub-play, so that
those who reject this passage are driven to the shift of supposing that
Shakspere after promising us such a passage and leading us to expect
it has not given it.
(4) The passage suits Hamlet’s general character better than any
other in the sub-play. This is admitted by Mr Malleson.
(5) It suits Hamlet’s views and feelings at the moment, which
are occupied only secondarily with his uncle’s guilt, primarily with
his mother’s misconduct.
(6) The insertion of it serves an object of the poet by showing
more clearly the doubleness of Hamlet’s conduct, and that while he
3
�482
XII. 3.
WHICH ARE hamlet’s ‘ DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ’ 1
was forced reluctantly by a sense of duty in one direction, his feel
ings and reflections were flowing irresistibly in another.
Sincerely yours,
J. R. Seeley.
III. 3/22 MALLESONS REJOINDER TO PROF. SEELEY’S
COMMENTS.
My
dear
Furnivall,
Mr Seeley’s reply to my paper is a striking one, but I
cannot give way, so you must allow me a brief reply.
Mr Seeley says that there are two ‘ necessary ’ characteristics for
the speech; it must consist of some 12 or 16 lines; and being an in
sertion it must be such a speech as can be removed without affecting
the action of the play.
I think this is somewhat strained.
Hamlet
never says he has written a passage of so many lines and inserted it.
If he had said so the matter would be simpler. We only know that
he intended to write and insert some lines of the number of which
he was not himself certain, ‘12 or 16.’ When he sat down with
the play before him he may have written 20 or 26, and indeed, if I
accepted the Player-King’s speech as partly Hamlet’s, I should claim
for him all of it, except only the two first and two last lines, which,
omitting the intervening 26, still go fairly together:—
I do believe you think what now you speak
But what we do determine oft we break.
So think thou wilt no second husband wed,
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.
1
2
28
30
And altho’ Mr Seeley says that it is quite easy to spare about 12 or
16 lines from the middle of this speech, he does not tell us, as I
think he should do, which lines he fixes upon, that we might judge
how far they do bear upon the conduct and character of Hamlet’s
mother.
Again, I do not see why the inserted lines must be such as can
be removed without affecting the action of the play; may not
Hamlet have inserted his lines in substitution for others which he
�XII. 3.
WHICH ARE hamlet’s f DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ’ 1
483
struck out 1 If so Mr Seeley’s argument against ‘ Thoughts black,
hands apt, etc.,’ because necessary to the action of the piece, will fall
to the ground.
But the most important part of Mr Seeley’s paper, to my mind,
is his defence of the passage he has selected on the ground that it
refers to the guilt of Hamlet’s mother, and describes her character.
He believes Hamlet to have been intensely pre-occupied with this
subject, to the exclusion of that duty of revenging his murdered
father, as to which he had sworn that it alone should live within
the book and volume of his brain unmixed with baser matter. Now
let us look at the lines to test this view of them. We may dismiss,
as above, the two first and two last lines on Mr Seeley’s own theory.
The next eight,1 from ‘ Purpose is but the slave to memory,’ describe
feebleness and vacillation of purpose. What men propose to them
selves under the influence of passion they forget when the passion is
over, and do not execute. Where in Hamlet’s mother do we find this
feeble vacillation ? Morally weak she certainly was, but not, I
think, one of the cowards of conscience. Having allowed her love
to he won by her husband’s brother during her husband’s life-time,
she suppresses any outward sign of the agonies of conscience, and
continues quietly with her betrayed but unsuspecting lord until his
sudden death (she is not privy to the murder), and then, within a
month of the funeral, without any vacillation at all, gives her hand
to her paramour. And just as no outward sign of flattering or
remorse on her part awakened suspicion in her first husband, so
now to all appearance she was prepared to lead a serene respectable
dignified life, had it not been for the moodiness and melancholy of
Hamlet. An easily led woman she appears to me, not introspective,
not given to searchings of conscience; the very reverse of her son,
whom the description so well fits.
1 Purpose is but the slave to memory ;
Of violent birth, but poor validity ;
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree ;
But fall unshaken, when they mellow be.
Most necessary ’tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
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XII. 3.
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S 1 DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ’ ?
The next four1 lines, ‘ The violence of either grief or joy,’ etc.,
describe satirically how easily men pass from joy to grief, or from
grief to joy, on slender accident. They deal, we should remember,
with joy and grief really felt, although shallow, not with feigned
feeling. The application is to the Player-Queen, whose future the
dumb show has sketched for us. It does not at all fit the case of
Hamlet’s mother, whose grief at the death of his father could not, as
Hamlet now well knew, have been violent; she may have followed bis
body like Niobe, all tears, but her sorrow was feigned, her thoughts
upon the new marriage. Had Hamlet wished to launch a dart at her,
he would have satirized the vice of hypocrisy, not the quick change
from violent grief to joy. The 102 succeeding lines, beginning,
This world is not for aye ; nor ’tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change,
deal with changes of love, and the subject at first seems appropriate
to the Queen. But the method of treatment is pointedly not so.
Again, it suits the Player-Queen, not the real queen. The burden is,
that love follows fortune. This hits off the lady, who having loved
and lost one royal husband, is ready at short notice to take another.
It does not touch what -was rankling in Hamlet’s mind—his mother’s
gross infidelity to her lord and king. Her falling off, her declining
from her first gracious husband upon the wretch whose natural gifts
were poor, is altogether a mystery, a terrible story; but at least her
love had neither been lead nor mislead by fortune. The remaining
four lines,
1 The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy ;
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament,
Grief joys, Joy grieves, on slender accident.
2 This world is not for aye ; nor ’tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change,
For ’tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark, his favourite flies ;
The poor advanced makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend ;
For who not needs shall never lack a friend ;
And who in want a hollow friend doth try
Directly seasons him his enemy.
�XIX. 8.
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S ‘ DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ’ 1
485
But orderly to end where I begun,—
Our wills and fates do so contrary run,
That our devices still are overthrown ;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own,
femind one of Hamlet himself, as I have said before, but do not
apply to the Queen at all.
I find, then, nothing in all this passage to catch the conscience of
the Queen, nothing with any special reference to her, and accordingly
she is perfectly unmoved by it. When Hamlet, shortly after (but
not immediately after) the Player-King’s speech, asks the question,
which Mr Seeley remarks upon, ‘ Madam, how like you this play 1 ’
the Queen entirely ignores the speech which Mr Seeley believes was
inserted to affect her, but refers to what the Player-Queen has just
pointedly said against second marriages, and with admirable self-pos
session answers simply, 1 Methinks the lady doth protest too much.’
I am persuaded that if Hamlet, as Mr Seeley imagines, wrote his
verses with the Queen in his mind, he would not have made them,
when regarded with reference to her, so pointless and beside the
mark.
The success of these lines at least was not such as to win Hamlet
a fellowship in a cry of players, a point in my first paper which Mr
Seeley lets go by, as he does also the intimation from Hamlet him
self that his lines contained the torrent tempest and whirlwind of
passion.
But it is indeed remarkable how little the Queen is affected by
tire play; she is indeed thrown into a ‘most great affliction of spirit,’
and desires at once to see Hamlet in her closet, but it is entirely upon
her husband’s account; she is troubled because Hamlet has so much
offended him, and is prepared to scold him well, to ‘ tax him home,’
for having done so. Then indeed Hamlet does arouse her conscience,
and turns her eyes into her very soul, effecting at once easily
directly and completely in this scene the very purpose that Mr
Seeley supposes him to have ineffectually attempted just before by
the round-about method of the play.
Mr Seeley, who at the commencement of his paper rather wishes
to put on one side conjectural interpretations of Hamlet’s character,
nevertheless, towards its close, supports his choice of the passage we
�486
XII. 3.
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S 1 DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES’1?
are disputing about by the striking theory that the experiment of
the play is a mere blind by which Hamlet hides from himself and
Horatio that he does not intend to act at all, but will go on as he has
begun, 1 brooding interminably upon the frailty of his mother, the
probable frailty of Ophelia, and the worthlessness of all women.’
In these last words a part seems to me substituted for the
whole; deeply as Hamlet felt about his mother and Ophelia, he is
much more than an injured son and a love-sick Romeo, in doubt of
the fidelity of his Juliet, put together. His philosophical, speculative
spirit would have survived both shocks, had not there weighed upon
him that too heavy duty—and yet to his mind that religious duty—
of revenge upon his uncle for the murder of his father.
A horrible
work for his tender, thoughtful, dreaming nature.
He was one troubled with thoughts that lie beyond the reaches of
our souls, so accustomed to detach himself from his surroundings,
that he could be bounded in a nutshell and count himself king of
infinite space. He has an inward life of keen observation and subtle
thought, apart from the life of loves, hates, fears, changes, duties,
which he lives with others. He moves through the play, to my mind,
like a being of a different world, tied indeed to that of his fellows
by many links,—the most delightful of which had become the most
painful,—but sympathizing with and trusting no one but Horatio,
who belonged also to his other world of subtle, wide-reaching
speculation.
Passage after passage—I need not quote—will occur to the student
of Hamlet, in which he pauses even in the most exciting moments
to generalize, to moralize, or even to note an observation. Coleridge
says, 11 Hamlet’s character is the prevalence of the abstracting and
generalizing habit over the practical. He does not want courage,
skill, will, or opportunity; but every incident sets him thinking ;
and it is curious, and at the same time strictly natural, that Hamlet,
who all the play seems reason itself, should be impelled at last by
mere accident to effect his object.” Coleridge adds, “ I have a smack
of Hamlet myself, if I may say so.”
I have but little more to add. Mr Seeley asks me to point out
where I find that Hamlet’s lines were to refer to the King’s guilt. In
�XII. 3.
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S ‘ DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ’ 1
487
addition to the reasons already given, I may add this—that it is at
the very moment when he has just commanded the play, in order, as
every one admits, to catch the King, that he also proposes to add his
lines; and why should we cast about for another purpose 1 Mr
Seeley says that the play was already sufficiently pointed.
So be it;
but in Hamlet’s state of excitement there would be nothing unnatural
in his wishing to make assurance doubly sure.
The question whether his father’s murder or his mother’s mis
conduct is uppermost in Hamlet’s mind I need not now enter upon;
as I have endeavoured to show that the lines Mr Seeley contends
for refer as little ter the latter as to the former; but it is going some
what far to say that ‘ before Hamlet even suspected his uncle's guilt,Qi)
before the appearance of the ghost, he is shown to us so much de
pressed as to think of suicide on account of his mother’s levity.’ He
is certainly also shown to us as weighed down by his father’s death,
his grief does not ‘ seem ’, it ‘ is ’; the very form of his father is
vividly present to his mind’s eye when speaking with Horatio,
before he has heard of the apparition of the ‘ Spirit in arms.’ Then
his previously latent suspicions take form at once, he doubts ‘ some
foul play,’ and when the ghost is beginning the fearful revelation,
Hamlet breaks in upon it with—
O my prophetic soul! mine uncle!
There is no doubt, however, that Mr Seeley is right when he says
that his lines suit Hamlet’s character better than any others in the
sub-play. I go further, and say they describe Hamlet’s character.
How, then, do they come there ? Hamlet had no object to attain by
describing himself, but Shakspere had in describing Hamlet, and
throughout the play he seems to seize every occasion to throw a
needed light upon his enigmatical character. If, then, the sub-play
ever really existed independently, 1 extant ’ as Hamlet assures us it
was, and ‘ writ in choice Italian,’ Shakspere may have added this
passage to elucidate the meaning of the larger play ; or if it was all
Shakspere’s, written in imitation of such brief performances, he may
have introduced the lines for the same purpose.
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WHICH ARE hamlet’s ‘ DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ’ 1
However, this difficulty comes not near my conscience, it does
not touch my argument. I have not to defend all or any of the queer
little play, so wordy and yet so brief, with its short speeches and
quick action. I need only say, if any one
——like not the comedy,
Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.
Yours faithfully,
W. T. Malleson.
IV. PROF. SEELEY’S FINAL REMARKS.
I must add one or two words before the controversy is closed.
First, I hope Shaksperian students will not forget what Mr
Malleson has pointed out in his first paper; namely, that Shakspere
did not mean us to think of Hamlet’s intention to insert a dozen or
sixteen lines as a mere passing fancy, that it is this inserted speech
which Hamlet has in view when he gives his celebrated instruction
to the players, and that therefore, unless’ something strange has
happened to the play, the insertion clearly ought to be discoverable.
Unless, then, we suppose an alteration of the play to have taken
place in which the insertion has disappeared, while all that leads us
to expect the insertion has by some unaccountable negligence been
allowed to stand, we have to choose between my view and Mr
Malleson’s, for I do not think any third can be suggested.
I have urged against Mr Malleson’s view that the speech he
chooses cannot be removed without affecting the action of the play,
and therefore has not the character of an insertion. Mr Malleson
now answers that Hamlet “ may have inserted his lines in substitu
tion for others which he struck out; ” but I submit that this is an
unnatural interpretation of the words, and that, at least, a passage
plainly removable answers Hamlet’s description much better than
one which is not.
It may be urged—Mr Malleson seems half-inclined to urge it—
that I am bound to mark exactly the beginning and end of the
passage which I consider to be the insertion. As I have said, there
�XII. 4.
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S ‘ DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ’ Î
489
is no difficulty in omitting a good long passage from the middle of
the player-king’s speech, and this is actually done now at the
Aycewn; for, I take it, the length of that speech will always seem
intolerable to actors who do not’see the importance of it; but I
admit that the omission might be made in two or three different
Wyt, and that I do not profess to know for certain which is the
way. I hardly think that Shakspere knew himself. When he
Wne to compose the speech I imagine he said to himself : ‘ it must
eummence with a general text, which is to be considered as be
longing to the original play, “what we do determine oft we break
then must follow Hamlet’s sermon upon it.’ But, as Shakspere was
in reality author of both text and sermon, he wove them together so
much, that, though I think he left it quite clear that Hamlet’s copy
of verses is here, yet he did not make it possible to say with abso
lute certainty where it begins. I believe that any one who tried
in this way to write a poetical speech with a mock-insertion in it
would be almost sure to make the join not quite distinct enough.
Mr Malleson accuses me of letting go by his observation that
Hamlet declares that the success of his lines might “win him a fellow
ship in a cry of players.” But it is a mere guess of Mr Malleson’s
that Hamlet is speaking of the success of his inserted lines and not
of that of the play in general. If a player were the same thing as a
dramatic writer I should think the guess plausible. A player might,
HO doubt, as in Shakspere’s own case, write verses, but it was not as
a player that he did so. Hamlet considers his success to be that of
a player, not that of a poet. I cannot see, then, that in this passage
there is any reference whatever to the inserted lines. Hamlet boasts
that he has selected a play so happily, and brought it out with such
success, as to show a genius for the business of a manager.
Again, Mr Malleson accuses me of leaving unanswered his obSWvation that, according to the instructions to the players these lines
“ contained the torrent, tempest, and whirlwind of passion,” whereas
the lines I point to are not passionate, but meditative.
I quite admit that Hamlet’s instructions suggest a speech that is
in ftome sense passionate, but any one who reads those instructions
will see that Hamlet is taking the occasion of a particular speech to
�490
XII. 4.
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S 1 DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ’ 1
give a general lecture on the art of elocution.
He is speaking
generally of the way in which passion should be expressed, and he
says that, even where it is most intense, there should be a temperance
or smoothness in the rendering of it. This remark is evidently sug
gested by a passionate speech, but it may easily be supposed to go
beyond the speech that suggested it, and to contemplate much higher
degrees of passion than are to be found there. But I believe also that
the generalities about feebleness of purpose which strike Mr Malleson
as not passionate, seemed to Hamlet very much so, and that he would
have wished to hear those lines recited with a kind of despairing
melancholy. For Hamlet’s mind runs on generalities of this kind,
and they inspire him with feelings so strong as to approach madness.
It is the Weltschmerz of Werther and Faust.
Again, Mr Malleson urges that if Hamlet’s object was to catch
the conscience of the queen he certainly does not succeed, for the
queen keeps her self-possession perfectly. This shows me that I have
not succeeded in explaining what my view is.
Mr Malleson evi
dently thinks that I wish to maintain that Hamlet’s object in the
play is really to catch the conscience of the queen, and only ostensibly
to catch the conscience of the king. Not at all. I hold that his
object is just what he professes that it is, and that when he triumphs
so loudly and boasts of deserving a fellowship in a cry of players, it
is because he has succeeded in this object, that is, has caught the
conscience of the king. But for this purpose no insertion was
needed ; the play itself did its own work. The notion that the play
required to be altered to make it suit the circumstances more exactly
is not supported by anything in Shakspere. Prosaically, no doubt,
it is true; that is, it is not likely that a play could be found so
minutely corresponding to the facts of the king’s murder; but what
was the use of calling attention to a mere difficulty of detail, which
the reader could safely be left to overcome in his imagination as he
pleased ? My view, then, is that the insertion has a different object,
and is introduced to tell us something about Hamlet that we should
not have known so well otherwise. Is this object, then, to catch the
conscience of the queen? Not exactly; I should not express it so;
I do not imagine that Hamlet was disappointed when he saw that
�XII. 4.
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S ‘DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ’ 1
the queen remained undisturbed. But we have seen
the beginning of the play brooding over his mother’s
quantity of reflection on the subject of inconstancy,
purpose, &c., has been accumulating in his mind. He
491
Hamlet from
conduct. A
feebleness of
is a person of
a literary turn, given to reading, to writing verses, to thinking about
the drama. I imagine, then, that when he has hit upon the happy
compromise between his public duty and his private taste which the
play offers, he thinks with great delight of the opportunity it
affords him of relieving himself of the weight of feeling that has
been oppressing him so long by putting it into verse. He will write
a poem on his mother, and insert it in the play. It may not produce
much effect on her when she hears it; indeed, he probably knows
too well already how unimpressionable she is; but his object will
be gained if he only writes it, for it will be a relief to his feelings.
And if Hamlet’s object will be gained, still more will Shakspere’s.
For he will have at the same time thrown new light on the dreamy,
unpractical character of Hamlet, and made us aware of the private
train of thought which Hamlet is pursuing all the while that he
professes to be intent upon detecting his uncle’s guilt.
But Mr Malleson says the speech I point to is not a description
of Hamlet’s mother, but of himself. He says, “ The eight lines from
‘Purpose is but the slave to memory’ describe feebleness and
vacillation of purpose. What men propose to themselves under the
influence of passion they forget when the passion is over, and do not
execute. Where in Hamlet’s mother do we find this feeble vacil
lation]” We find it surely in the fact that, having loved Hamlet’s
father, she allowed her affections to be drawn away by the con
temptible uncle. Read Hamlet’s first soliloquy. It all turns on
the incredible levity and fickleness of his mother. Mr Malleson’s
point seems to be, that the revelation of the ghost must have changed
his view, for the ghost ‘seems to say that the queen had been un
faithful to her husband in his lifetime, so that Hamlet ought now
to charge her, not with mere vacillation, but with actual sin and
breach of marriage faith. But this does not affect the fact that she
had displayed ‘ feeble vacillation; ’ only it shows that the vacillation
had appeared earlier than Hamlet knew, and had gone further. He
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XII. 4.
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S ‘DOZEN OR SIXTEEN TANKS ’ 1
might dwell upon her feebleness or her sin, as either might happen
to strike him most , forcibly, for in her conduct there was both.
But
as a matter of fact he is most struck by her feebleness, and this even
after the ghost’s revelations. We see this from the language he
holds in his interview with his mother.
So little does he say to his
mother about actual sin or breach of faith, that one might read that
whole Scene, as, in fact, I for a long time did, without discovering,
what I now think is clear from the language of the ghost, that she
had done anything worse than take up with a contemptible husband
after having lost a noble one. It is true, Hamlet begins by charging
her with being guilty of a monstrous crime, but when he comes to
say what it is, we find not a word about breach of faith, violation of
the marriage vow; he simply presses upon her the revolting contrast
between her two husbands, and asks how she could have eyes to
tolerate her second after her first. Now, it is evident that from the
purely moral point of view the comparative merits of the two men
do not concern the matter, and yet Hamlet’s language is such as
almost to imply that if they had presented themselves to her in the
reverse order, her conduct would have been as admirable as it was
disgraceful. I point out this to show, that if the speech in the sub
play is on vacillation, and not on adultery or hypocrisy, it suits all
the better with the tenour of Hamlet’s reflections on his mother’s
conduct, for it is on vacillation that he harps, both in his first
soliloquy and also in the interview with his mother after he has
learnt all that the ghost has to tell.
In Mr Malleson’s assertion that the lines describe Hamlet’s own
character, there is no doubt a grain of truth. Hamlet cannot de
scribe a vacillating character without in some degree describing
his own; and it is quite in his vein of moralizing to say, “ We
are all such weaklings and I am one myself! ” But in the
first instance the speech refers to Hamlet’s mother, not to Hamlet
himself, for it refers to a wife tempted to marry again, and Hamlet,
was not such a person.
I think I have now answered all Mr Malleson’s objections. I
only wish to add, that whatever may be the truth about the “ dozen
or sixteen lines,” I am strongly of opinion that critics have not
�XXI.
4. WHICH ARE
hamlet’s
1 DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ’ ?
493
sufficiently understood the true nature of the retarding influence" in
the play of Hamlet. Hamlet is made irresolute, not merely by his
natural character, but by the intense pre-occupation of his mind by
the subject of his mother. He himself excuses his delay by passion—
“ Who lapsed in time and passion, lets go by The important acting of
your dread command.” Critics, it seems to me, have not understood
the full importance of the lines of the Ghost at the beginning of the
play
“ But howsoever thou pursu’st this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught.”
The early critics noticed the nobleness of the passage; but to see
the importance of it, we must compare it with what happens at
Hamlet’s interview with his mother. There the Ghost appears again.
What can be the meaning of such a startling incident ?
He says,
“The visitation is but to whet thine almost blunted purpose.” But
the reason evidently is, because Hamlet is • forgetting the former
admonition. His rage against his mother is passing all bounds. And
to make this plainer, Shakspere has carefully contrasted it with his
behaviour towards the uncle. Two scenes are put side by side. In
the first Hamlet overhears his uncle’s soliloquy; in the second he
talks to his mother. In the first his irresolution overpowers him.
He loses his opportunity through a scruple which would be utterly
monstrous if it were not evidently artificial. In the second he rises
to a height of passion which we should not have thought belonged
to his nature, and actually startles the dead king from his grave to
Watch over the wife he still remembers with tenderness.
Between these two appearances of the Ghost, Shakspere’s con
trivance to show us the pre-occupation of Hamlet’s mind with his
mother, is the story of his behavioqr to Ophelia. I agree with Mr
Malleson in the explanation he gives of the coarseness of Hamlet’s
language to her.
But the same explanation applies, not to that
acene only, but to all the scenes between Hamlet and Ophelia.
Hamlet has generalized in his fashion from the conduct of his mother
to that of all women, and so casts Ophelia off. But more is wanted ;
in fact, when we consider how little all this has actually been under
stood, we see that much more was wanted.
�494
XII.
4. WHICH ARE HAMLET’S ‘DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES’?
The contrivance, then, of “ the dozen or sixteen lines ” was not
superfluous. In the lively satire of the conversation with the
players and in the tumult of the play-scene there was danger
that we should forget what Hamlet’s mind is really brooding
over. This danger could only be avoided by giving additional
importance to that part of the sub-play which concerned the queen.
This is done by the insertion. That that insertion should refer to
the queen, and not the king, seems, I know, to most persons prima
facie improbable, but I believe that if they will begin by weighing
what I have urged as to the real nature of the retarding influence in
this play they will see that the prima facie probability is in favour
of it.
Mr Furnivall:—It seems to me that technically Professor
Seeley’s position is very strong ; but that ‘ on the merits ’ he breaks
down : he has a capital case at Law, but none in Equity. After he
first put the inserted-speech point to me, in the course of a long after
noon’s walk in the country, I was able to pick out the lines in the
Player-King’s, Speech, not because they had much to do with the
Queen or King, but because they describd—as Prof. Seeley told me they
did—the character. of Hamlet. On further consideration, I cannot
resist Mr Malleson’s argument that Hamlet’s inserted speech is the one
speech in which he tells Horatio the King’s occulted guilt is to unken
nel itself. To me, at any rate, fair criticism requires the identification of
the two. But I hold very strongly that Lucianus’s speech, “ Thoughts
black,” &c., is not this speech; and that, in fact, the speech is notin
the printed play. Either the King’s conscience was more quickly
stung than Hamlet anticipated,—that is, than Shakspere meant it to
be before he got to the scene,—and so the written speech was never
needed; or, (as Mr Matthew has suggested) Shakspere contented him
self with showing us (or letting us assume) that Hamlet alterd the
Play, and put his “ dozen or sixteen lines ” into action instead of
words. Hamlet at first resolvd to “ have these players play some
thing like
murder of my father before mine uncle.” Then he
made them play a play exactly like the murder; and took credit to
himself for the whole affair : “ would not this get me a fellowship in
a cry of players 1 ” If he hadn’t modified the play, if it had been all
—like its story—really extant in choice Italian, what credit could
Shakspere have claimd for himself as a play-writer or adapter ?
The inconsistency of Shakspere’s having made Hamlet first talk
so much about inserting one speech, and then having afterwards left
it out, doesn’t trouble me in the least. It’s just what one might fairly
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495
expect in til® recast Hamlet, after its really startling inconsistencies
in far more important matters, 1. as to Hamlet’s age, and 2. as t-o
Ophelia’s suicide. We know how early, in olden time, young men of
yank were put to arms ; how early, if they 'went to a University, they
left it, for training in Camp and Court. Hamlet, at a University,
ftouh1 hardly have passt 20; and with this age, the plain mention of
his '“youth of primy nature” (I. iii. 7), and “ nature crescent, . . not
. » alone in thews and bulk” (I. iii. 11-12), “Lord Hamlet . . he is
young” (I. iii. 123-4), &c., by Polonius and Laertes, agrees.
With this, too, agrees the King’s reproach to Hamlet for his
41 intent in going back to school at Wittemberg ; ” and Hamlet’s own
revolt-of-nature at his mother’s quick re-marriage to his uncle. Had
he been much past 21, and had more experience of then women, he’d
have taken his mother’s changeableness more coolly. I look on it as
certain, that when Shakspere began the play he conceivd Hamlet as
quite a young man. But as the play grew, as greater weight of reflec
tion, of insight into character, of knowledge of life, &c., were wanted,
Bhakspere necessarily and naturally made Hamlet a formd man;
and, by the time that he got to the Gravediggers’ scene, told us the
Prince was 30—the right age for him then : but not his age to
Laertes and Polonius when they warnd Ophelia against his blood
that burnd, his youthful fancy for her—1 a toy in blood ’—&c. The
two parts of the play are inconsistent on this main point in Hamlet’s
State. What matter? Who wants ’em made consistent by the
modification of either part ? The ‘ thirty ’ is not in the first Quarto :
yefc^o one wants to go back to that.
2. As Mason notic’t with regard to Ophelia’s death, “ there is not
a single circumstance in the relation [by the Queen] of Ophelia’s
death, that induces us to think she had drowned herself intentionally ”
(Panorum, vii. 460); on the contrary, we are expressly told that the
branch (sliver) broke, and she fell in. Yet directly afterwards (V. i.)
We are told that she sought her death ‘ wilfully ’, “ did with desperate
hand fordo [her] own life ” ; the priest declares her death was doubt
ful, buries her with maimed rites only by the express command of the
King, and says that, but for this command, she’d have been buried in
ground unsanctified (in ‘ the open fieldes ’, Qi). After inconsistencies
like these—and there may be others in the play—what can it matter
whether an actual speech of a dozen or sixteen lines, though often
announct, is really in the play or not? The comparative insignifi
cance of the point is shown by no one having noted it in print before
Mr and Mrs Cowden Clarke.1 But while I say 4 comparative insignificance,’ I only use this phrase to lessen any wonderer’s surprise at my
conclusion that Shakspere should have left the speech out, or turnd his
propos’d insertion into a more important adaptation of the play. I
do not think Prof. Seeley’s bringing the question before us at all
1 Note the funny lucus a non lucendo reason given by these editors for the
insertion of the lines.
�496
XII.
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S 4 DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES ’ 1
insignificant: the point is a capital one, just suited for us. I accept it
thankfully as a reproach for having read Hamlet so carelessly be
fore ; and, as formerly,—when Prof. Seeley identified, for the first
time, Chaucer’s Plowman with him of William’s Fmcw,—I gladly
acknowledge the freshness of his view, the keenness and penetration
of his mind, and thank him heartily for raising the question, and Mr
Malleson for showing such good cause against his conclusions.
Mr Eichard Simpson, who could not come to our Meeting, has
sent me the following letter :—
My dear Furnivall,
I think that there is no warrant for assuming that the
lines announced by Hamlet are to be supposed to exist in the sub
play at all. The whole subject of these sub-plays should be
examined into. It is clear that the necessity for abbreviation will
not allow them to contain all the elements of a play, any more than
an historical drama can contain all the events of a reign. And as
the historical drama takes for granted those events which are made
known by previous allusions, so the sub-play generally omits all
those details which have been previously described or alluded to.
Let me refer to two dramas where sub-plays are introduced after
previous preparation. In the Midsummer Night's Dream we have
not only the play as presented before Theseus, but a previous re
hearsal of it in Act iii. sc. 1. * The lines there rehearsed are totally
different from any that come in the play ultimately acted. Again, in
the Histriomastix, the play of the Prodigal Son, acted in the late
portion of the drama, is preceded by the poet’s reading it over to the
actors in an earlier scene. Not a passage in these two presentations
of the same piece agrees. The announcement and expectations raised
by the first recital are not fulfilled in the event.
Again, when a play, imagined to be some thousand lines long, is
compressed into about 70, a speech of a dozen or sixteen lines in it
shrinks, by proportion, into about five words.
Looking both at the practice of the Elizabethan dramatists, and
at the previous likelihoods of the case, I see no reason whatever for
expecting to find that Shakspere would have put into the sub-play
the dozen lines which he makes Hamlet promise. At the end Hamlet
exults over his success as if the whole play had been his own adapt
ation. I don’t believe that the poet ever meant wis to pick out a bit,
and say, This is the plum contributed by Hamlet himself.
E. Simpson.
Dr Brinsley Nicholson : My spoken remarks are here put forth
in somewhat better shape, both because each theorist has since
insisted very strongly on his own peculiar views, and because I did
not ex improviso bring out as I had wished what I take to be the
intent and significance of the advice-to-the-players-speech.
�XII.
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S ‘DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES’?
497
Both theories appear to take it for granted that the sub-play is a
real play and not Shakspere’s. The ring-poesie prologue, the short
speeches, the absence of any second plot, and of any but the main
actors of the main plot, the directness with which the plot is opened,
and the occurrence of the chief catastrophe within a few minutes
from the drawing of the curtain, all show that the play is the abridge
ment of an abridgement manufactured for the occasion. That it is
Shakspere’s is also shown by every speech in it, and his art is dis
tinctly manifested in the way in which in so little space he has con
trived in Gonzago’s speech to open out to us Hamlet’s thoughts and
character, and state in brief that moral of the main play which
Hamlet’s character is meant to set forth.
“ Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own ”
£s merely a variant of Hamlet’s own phrase,
“ There’s a divinity that shapes our ends ”,
and both express one of the main ideas of the play. If the sub-play
be stilted and artificial, it is so made on the principle that leads a
painter to paint a picture within a picture rudely and artificially,
namely, that his own presentment may appear more true and life-like.
But, it is said, Hamlet is represented as writing a speech for the
Set purpose of more surely catching the conscience of the king. True,
and sufficient artistic reasons can be given for this. First, if it were
not necessary that Hamlet should rush into action, yet any one in
his position would for naturalness’ sake be represented as trying to
make assurance doubly sure. Secondly, in the feverish activity into
which Hamlet is roused, it is a necessity that he should do somewhat.
Ware he not, this, looked at by his character elsewhere, would have
been a grievous flaw in Shakspere’s delineation of him, and this side
or indirect, and literary and, as it were, meditative action is that most
in keeping. Thirdly, as it tended to destroy the audience ’ belief in
the Hamlet story, that there should be a play so exactly similar in
plot, and manner and place and rewards of poisoning ;—as the Gonzago
play would tend to mar the reality of the Hamlet play, and the Hamlet
play would give rise to the belief that the Gonzago play was evolved
to order—the double result of coincidence was avoided by making
Hamlet appear as an adapter. This, it will be observed, does not trench
fit in any way depend on the question whether any tragedy of ‘The
Murder of Gonzago’ really existed. That there was such a tragedy is
a, perfectly gratuitous assumption; but if there were, then Hamlet’s
expressed intent would bring out more forcibly the difference between
the real tragedy and—not Hamlet’s—but Shakspere’s sub-play adapt
ation. That the audience knew Kyd’s Sdliman and Perseda only
»»akes Hieronimo’s use of the story as a sub-play and bringer about
■of the catastrophe in Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy the more natural.
Again, it will be said, admitting these artistic reasons, there still
»remains the fact that Hamlet is represented as writing. But the artistic
�498
XII.
WHICH ARE HAMLET’S ‘ DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES’?
reasons being allowed, what reason is there for Hamlet’s writing
when Shakspere had the whole intent of the sub-play in his mind’s
eye, and the whole making of it in his own hands 1 Admit the play
to be Shakspere’s, and admit the reasons for his manner of introduc
ing the play, and the whole raison d'etre of Hamlet’s intent appears,
and the whole raison di être for there being any such speech disappears.
And here comes in fitly and with force Mr R. Simpson’s acute remark
that the description of these sub-plays never answers to their per
formance. Not a word spoken in the rehearsal scene in Histriomastix is spoken in the acted play, neither is there a word of Bottom
and Co.’s rehearsal spoken in the Pyramus and Thisbe presented be
fore Theseus and his bride.
Lastly, it may be said, that in proof of the existence of a Ham
let speech it is again pointedly referred to in Hamlet’s advice to the
players. This is true, and I am content that the question be decided
by this advice. Where in the sub-play is the clown, so animadverted
on by Hamlet! Or if it be said, this latter part of the advice is a
digression into which, as usual, his subject carries him, I ask
where, after the very first words—“ Speak the speech, I pray you, trip
pingly on the tongue,” where is the town-crier speech, where the
speech requiringu a sawing of the air thus ”—where the very torrent,
tempest, and whirlwind of passion—where the robustious periwigpated fellow tearing his passion to tatters—where the o’erdoing Ter
magant and out - heroding Herod 1
The very speech relied on
declares in its opening words, as well as in its closing ones, that it
cannot refer to any speech in the sub-play.
Why then was it introduced? Not simply to keep up the vrai
semblance of the whole contrivance. This was a secondary aim ; but
its true raison d'être is, that Shakspere had something to say on plays
and play-acting which he would not leave unsaid, and took or made
this opportunity of saying it. Just as Hamlet represents a phase in
Shakspere’s life and character more individually than any other of
his characters, so nowhere—unless where he refers to the luces,—
does he, so to speak, break forth as in Hamlet. Thus we have the
outbreak on the tragedians of the city and cry of children. Lor
myself, I have little doubt that there is a reference or references to
Jonson, to whom in 1601 or -2, he had administered a famous dose.
And none can read the diatribe against clowns in the first Quarto,
without perceiving that Shakspere is speaking with personal anger
and bitterness against some particular actor, Kemp, or some other.
Very possibly also there are in the rest of the advice special hits
which were to his then audience palpable enough. But there is more,
and as I take it, a rising above these squabbles, and whether Shak
spere followed the changing taste of the day, or went against it, or
led it, I hold this speech to be his definite protest against the un
naturalness and stilt and rant of the Tamburlaine style of plays where
Marlow was imitated,—but not his poetry,—and against the artificiality
�XII.
WHICH ARE hamlet’s ‘ DOZEN OR SIXTEEN LINES’?
499
and rant of the actors who played in them. Hamlet is the first of
Shakspere’s greatest dramas, and he then, so to express it, found himself, and this speech is the outcome of some of his maturing thoughts.
In it are the suggesting thoughts that led him to give up the more
poetic and fanciful treatment of his subjects observable in the Mid
summer Night’s Dream, and Romeo and Juliet, and what Mr Hales
well calls the rhetorical style of Henry V. (and Julius Casar), toge
ther with the more heroic-ryme-like verse suited to these styles, in order
to make his mirrors to nature not only more like flesh and blood, but
think and speak more like those on the stage of the world. In one
word, this speech is Shakspere’s own indication of his aims in the
future manipulation of his thoughts and mode of expressing them.1
’ I have since come across the following :—“ The play, acted by the players
before the King, is at first in a bad and antiquated style. I thought it might
be really taken from an old play ; but it is impossible he could have lit upon
a composition which [so ?] suited his purpose ; and in the last speech but one
there is a resemblance to Shakespeare’s fancies, about grief, love, etc., and else
where to his words; and great neatness and care in the composition. It is all
in rhyme. I do not see symptoms of the lines which Hamlet was to insert.”—
C. Bathurst's Remarks on Shakespeare's Versification, 1857, p. 70.
��Quarto 2 (with the Folio and a revised Text), c. Merry Wives
of Windsor, and Folio 1; d. The Contention, and Henry VI,
Part 2, in F 1; The True Tragedy, and Henry VI, Part 3, in
Fl.
Parallel Texts of the following Quarto Plays and their versions
in the First Folio, with collations : Richard III, Q 1; 2 Henry
IV, Q 1; Troilus and Cressida, Q 1; Lear, QI. Of Othello,
four Texts : Q 1, Q 2, F 1, and a revised Text.
Parallel Texts of the two earliest Quartos of Midsummer
Night’s Dream, and The Merchant of Venice.
The First Quartos of Much Ado about Nothing; Loues
Labour’s Lost; Richard II; 1 Henry IV;—from which
the copies in the Folio were printed ;—and Edward III.
Reprints in Quarto of the remaining Folio Plays, with collations.
Series IV.
Shakspere Allusion-Books, Parts II. and III.
Series V. The Contemporary Brama (ed. Richard Simpson. Esq.).
a. The Works of Robert Greene, Thomas Nash (with a selec
tion from Gabriel Harvey’s), Thomas Lodge, and Henry
Chettle.
b. The Arraignment of Paris (Peele’s) ; Arden of Feversham;
George-a-Greene; Locrine; King Edward III (of which
Act ii. is by a different hand, and that, almost certainly
Shakspere’s) ; Mucedorus; Sir John Oldcastle; Thomas
Lord Cromwell; The Merry Devil of Edmonton; The
London Prodigal; The Puritan; A Yorkshire Tragedy;
Faire Em; The Birth of Merlin; The Siege of Antwerp;
The Life and Death of Thomas Stucley; A Warning to
Fair Women.
c. The Martinist and Anti-Martinist Plays of 1589-91; and
the Plays relating to the quarrel between Dekker and
Jonson in 1600.
'
d. Lists of all the Companies of Actors in Shakspebe’s time,
their Directors, Players, Plays, and Poets, &c. &c.
Richard II, and the other Plays in Egerton MS. 1994
(suggested by Mr J. 0. Halliwell).
The Returnefrom Pernassus, 1606, to be edited by the Rev.
A. B. Grosart.
Series VII. Mysteries, fyc. Ancient Mysteries, with, a Morality,
from the Digby MS. 133, re-edited from the unique MS. by
the Rev. W- W. Skeat, M.A.; The Towneley Mysteries, reedited from the unique MS. by the Rev. Richard Morris, LL.D.
Series VIII. Miscellaneous. Autotypes of the parts of the Play
of Sir Thomas More that may possibly be in young Shakspere’s
handwriting, from the Harleian MS. 7368. Thomas Rymer’s
‘Tragedies of the last Age considered and examined’, 1673,
1692 ; and his ‘A short View of Tragedy of the last Age ’, 1693.
�ï
THE
NEW SHAKSPERE SOCIETY.
"Soeietie (saith the text) is the happinesse of life»"—Loues Labour's lost, iv. Î.
Meeting at University College, Gower St, London, W.C., on the 2nd Friday of every
month (except at Easter and during July, August, and September), at 8 p.m. Sub
scription, One Guinea a year, due on 1st January, and payable to the Hon. Sec., A. G.
Snelgrove, Esq., London Hospital, London, E.
PRESIDENT :
[ft -is hoped that one of our chief living Poets will take tAs post.]
VICE-PRESIDENTS :
I
F
j
The Rev. Edwin A. Abbott, D.D.
C. E. Appleton, Esq., D.C.L.
The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells.
Professor T. Spencer Baynes, LL.D., St An
drew’s.
William Black, Esq.
H. I. H. Prince Louis-Lucien Bonaparte.
Professor F. J. Child, Ph.D., Harvard Coll.,
U.S.A.
Prof. Hiram Corson. Cornell Uni^ Ithaca,
U.S.A.
The Right Hos, Wm. F. Cowper-Temple,
M.P.
The Hon. Mrs Wm. F. Cowper-Temple.
Sir John F. Davis, Bart.
Lord Delamere.
Professor N. Delius, Ph.D., Bonn.
The Right Hon. The Earl of Derby.
The Duke of Devonshire, K.G.
Professor Dowden, LL.D., Trim Coll., Dublin.
The Archbishop of Dubmjt.
<The Countess of Ducie.
The Right Hon. The Earl of Dufferin
and Clandeboye, Governor-General of
Canada.
The Earl of Ellesmere.
Alexander J. Ellis, Esq., F.R.S.
Professor Karl Elze, Pil.D., Dessau.
Horace Howard Furness, Esq., Philadel
phia, U.S.A.
Mrs Horace Howard Furness.
Madame Gervinus, Heidelberg.
Henry Hucks Gibbs, Esq., M.A.
The Earl of Gosford.
Professor G. Guizot, College de France,
Paris.
N. E. S. A. Hamilton, Esq.
Sir T. Duffus Hardy.
Rev. H. N. Hudson, Cambridge, U.S.A.
Professor T. H. Huxley, F.R.S.
R. C. Jebb, Esq., M.A., Public Orator, Cam
bridge.
Lord Leconfield.
F. Leighton, Esq., R.A.
Professor Leo, Ph.D., Berlin.
H. R. H. Prince Leopold.
The Marquis of Lothian.
J. Russell Lowell, Esq., D.C.L., Cambridge,
U.S.A.
Sir John Lubbock, Bart., F.R.S.
The Right Hon. Lord Lyttelton.
George MacDonald, Esq., LL.D.
The Duke of Manchester.
H. Maudsley, Esq., M.D.
Prof. Henry Morley, Univ. Coll., London.
Rev. Richard Morris, LL.D.
Professor Max Müller, Ph.D., Oxford.
Professor C. W. Opzoomer, Ph.D., Utrecht.
Professor C. H. Pearson, M.A., Melbourne.
Sir Henry Rawlinson.
Henry Reeve, Esq., D.C.L.
The Right Hon. Lord Romilly.
Dante G. Rossetti, Esq.
Professor J. Ruskin, M.A., Oxford.
The Ex-Bishop of St David’s.
Alexander Schmidt, Ph.D., Berlin.
Professor J. R. Seeley, M.A., Cambridge.
The Rev. W. W. Skeat, M.A., Cambridge.
William Smith, Esq., D.C.L.
Sir Edward Strachey, Bart.
Tom Taylor, Esq., M.A.
Professor Bernhard Ten Brink, Ph.D.,
Strassburg.
The Right Rev. Bishop Thirlwall.
The Rev. W. H. Thompson, D.D., Master or
Trinity College, Cambridge.
Professor Ulrici, Ph.D., Halle.
R. Grant White, Esq., New York, U.S.A.
COMMITTEE :
F. J. Furnivall, Esq. (M.A.), Director, 3, St George’s Square, Primrose Hill, London, N.W.
J. W. Hales, Esq., M.A.
I Fred. D. Matthew, Esq.
C. Mansfield Ingleby, Esq., LL.D.
Brinsley Nicholson, Esq., M.D.
George H. Kingsley, Esq., M.D.
| Richard Simpson, Esq., B.A.
Treasurer: William Payne, Esq., The Keep, Forest Hill, London, S.E.
Hon. Sec.: Arthur G. Snelgrove, Esq., London Hospital, London, E.
Hankers: The Alliance Bank, Bartholomew Lane, London, E.C.
Publishers: N. Trübner & Co., 57 and 59, Ludgate Hill, London, E.C.
Agents for North Germany: Asher & Co., 53, Mohren-Strasse, Berlin.
Agent for South Germany, <£■<•. .■ Karl J. Trübner, 9, Münster Platz, Strassburg.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Which are Hamlet's 'dozen or sixteen lines'?
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Malleson, W.T.
Seeley, J.R.
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: [2], [465]-499, [2] p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. List of publications of the New Shakespeare Society listed inside front cover. List of officers and committee members on back page. Papers read before before the New Shakespeare Society at the eleventh meeting, Friday, December 11, 1874 at University College, London. From: New Shakespeare Society. Publications. Series 1: Transactions. Nos. 1-2, xii, 1874. Inscription on inside front cover: 'M.D. Conway with W. Malleson's affectionate regards'. The New Shakespeare Society was founded in autumn 1873 by Frederick James Furnivall. Printed by John Child and Son.
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Conway Tracts
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Text
George Eliot as a Moral Teacher.
65
This, Father, scatter from the soul,
and grant that we the wisdom
May reach, in confidence of which,
Thou justly guidest all things;
That we by Thee in honour set,
with honour may repay Thee,
Raising to all thy works a hymn
perpetual; as beseemeth
A mortal soul: since neither man
nor god has higher glory
Than rightfully to celebrate
Eternal Law all-ruling.”*
Art.
IV.—George Eliot
as a
Moral Teacher.
ATOVELS are the journals or records of manners,” is a definiIN tion to be found in “ The Conduct of Life.” Mr. Ruskin,
on the other hand, has just described fiction as a “feigned,
fictitious, artificial, put-together-out-of-one’s-head thing,” and
gives us, as the best type of it, a Greek vase. Something
between the two is perhaps what a good novel should.be, not a
mere journal of the outward manners of the world, without any
ruling design to give nobility and light to the correctness of
detail; nor yet only a “ put-together-out-of-one’s-head thing,”
without that foundation of carefully observed and well considered
fact, which lends dignity to imagination and gives meaning to
fictitious creations. Mr. Ruskin’s vivid fancy makes him prefer
suggestion to description, simile to definition ; and doubtless he
perceives in a Greek vase the type of every quality essential to
good fiction. For less splendid imaginations it is easier to
consider that the best sort of novel should resemble a finely
conceived picture, where the details are true and simple to the
recognition of the least artistic of us all, but where there is also
such an arrangement of light, shade, line, and colour, as to
bring out the nobler and more lasting beauties of the scene, and
suggest, if not reveal, to us the deeper meaning and more
permanent law, working over and through the common things
that hide them from dull eyes.
A novel has been called also an epic in prose, but the tendency
of modern fiction to develop itself more and more through the
sparkling rivulets of dialogue, less and less through the broad
river of narrative, brings it nearer to the drama than it was in
its earlier days. True pictures of men and women, revealed in
* From the Hymn of Cleanthes, translated by Mr. Francis Newman in
The Soul, p. 73, fifth edition.
[Vol. 0XVII. No. CCXXXI.j—New Series, Vol. LXI.No. I. E
�66
George Eliot as a Moral Teacher.
speech and action, are what we most urgently demand from it;
the use. of it seems to be the bringing in clear light before us
of fine ideals which we may be inspired to follow, and the reve
lation to us of our own responsibility, both in thought and
action, by the tracing of far off and unimagined consequences,
towards which we may have been surely travelling, though they
lay beyond our horizon or hidden by nearer things.
Since the death of George Eliot we have heard much of her
literary power and excellent artistic manner; but her value as a
moral teacher, that continual working towards good m her writings
which might be described as a lt making for righteousness,”
has not been sufficiently pointed out. It is this quality which
constitutes her. a master of prose-fiction in its noblest aspect, that
of virtue teaching truth, and of effort-inspiring revelation.
Fiction has been made a vehicle for the conveyance of moral
lessons since the days of David, son of Jesse, when Nathan the
pi ophet came, with his story of the ewe-lamb to the guilty king.
It was used abundantly eighteen centuries and a half ago, on the
shores of the Sea of Galilee and among the hills of Judea.
And to-day it performs still its highest office, more or less
worthily, but not with so much directness. We have no longer
the allegory in which we are to read out our own lesson step by
step, nor yet the amusing story of adventure with a brief moral
tacked on to the end of it as a sort of apology for its existence :
but we have fiction as a work of art, self-sustaining and self
explaining, truth revealed to us under the keen light of lofty
and virtue-loving thought. It is true that we have novels that
teach us nothing, and novels that teach us evilj but we do not
.find these among the works of George Eliot.
In the beginning of this century historical romance was very
popular; the action of novels was thrown back into the pic
turesque past, and the heroes and heroines were clad in attractively
unfamiliar attire. The tendency of later years has been to study
and . depict the present, to occupy ourselves more with life
studies from our contemporaries and less with fancy portraits of
our ancestors. The world has perhaps been the gainer for this
■change : Sir Walter Scott could take the old pictures down
from the walls and breathe human souls into their ancient
figures, touching them with fervour and passion until they lived
and walked among us as friends ; but there is a danger in having
beauty and nobility always depicted to us afar off, existing only
in other places and times than our own; we need to be taught
to perceive the great possibilities of our own life, the subtle
beauties of our own surroundings, and the unremarked virtues
of our neighbours.
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67
il I do distrust the poet who discerns
No character or glory in his times,
And trundles back his soul five hundred years,
Past moat and drawbridge, into a castle-court.
Nay, if there’s room for poets in this world
A little overgrown (I think there is),
Their sole work is to represent the age,
Their age, not Charlemagne’s—-this, live, throbbing age,
That brawls, cheats, maddens, calculates, aspires,
And spends more passion, more heroic heat,
Betwixt the mirrors of its drawing-rooms
Than Roland with his knights at Roncesvalles.”
We have been taught, eloquently and truly, in the works of
Mr. Ruskin, that no falseness, no shirking of fact, can produce
beauty. It has been demonstrated to us that the fineness of
Greek architecture becomes almost ugliness in Northern climes;
and that the incongruity of flat roofs and windy porches under
English skies can only be regarded as an outrage against true
taste. We have been instructed to clothe our needs with
beauty, and not to pursue elegance of outline as something apart
from use and fitness. We have been encouraged to give up
stale imitations of Doric temples, to attempt a combination of
beautiful form with serious purpose which shall be worthy the
name of design, and to find opportunities, of decoration in the
light-giving windows, the smoke-conveying chimneys, the rain
draining roofs of our Northern climate. After having been
taught in this way to perceive that in the common-place require
ments of our life may lie concealed the foundations of artistic
beauty, we need not go much farther to discover, amid our
experiences of every day, noble types and poetic pictures of our
common humanity. Jeanie travelled in a stage-coach in 1736,
had she lived in 1881 she would not perhaps have refused the
accommodation of an omnibus; and her errand would have been
not less devoted, her heart not less true, in one conveyance than
in the other. We cannot abolish cabs and tram-cars, but it is
left to us to be and to picture noble human beings using the
unpicturesq-ue vehicles, and living the unadventurous lives of our
own times. In this century, as in every other, the spirit can
elevate, if it cannot dictate, the form of life.
The fact, however, that much modern fiction represents the
life of to-day, limits the possibility of adventure, and brings
character into prominence as a cause as well as a resisting power.
Men and women are depicted to us surrounded by temptation
instead of bodily danger, and exposed to moral instead of
physical hardship. In past times courage and constancy on the
part of the hero, beauty and constancy on the part of the heroine,
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George Eliot as a Moral Teacher.
carried them through all troubles; most of the heroes and
heroines had indeed no other distinguishing qualities, and all
had these in common; they were young, they were handsome,
they were true; they were, in short, types rather than characters.
The young man was generous because he never troubled himself
about money, others provided it for him ; the young woman was
sweet-tempered because she rarely had anything to do except to
look pretty and to insist on marrying the right young man.
Both lived above the reach of the trivial cares that oppress so
many of us; the trials of daily life were put out of sight behind
picturesque sorrow, and life—as well as human beings—was clad
in the garb of romance. This is better, perhaps, than a morbid
dwelling on sordid details, but better still is a picture of natural
life poetically rendered.
Except in “ Romola,” George Eliot went back into no remote
past, and sought no far lands for the inspiration of her stories.
Among English orchards and meadows, over English hills she
leads us, and we see familiar English faces and hear familiar
English voices, as they are in our own time, as they were in our
fathers’, or as they used to be in the days our grandfathers have
told us of. If every word of the Scotch dialect of Sir Walter
Scott is worthy of careful study, what must be the English
dialect of George Eliot, the dialect which was our Shakespeare’s,
and which is true and pure enough to be used to-day in expla
nation of a knotty point in “ Hamlet” ?
“ I hate the sound of women’s voices; they’re always either
a-buzz or a-squeak—always either a-buzz or a-squeak. Mrs.
Poyser keeps at the top o’ the talk like a fife,” George Eliot wrote
in the latter half of the nineteenth century ; while Shakespeare,
in the beginning of the seventeenth, spoke of “an aiery of children,
little eyases, that cry out on the top of question,” i.e. talk.
George Eliot’s perfection of dialect is, however, only part of
that excellent literary method, to which—with two distinguished
exceptions—ample justice has already been done by the best of
her contemporaries. The end to which she applied the wonderful
means at her command is a separate question for consideration,
and surely we have only to study her works in order to perceive
that she belonged to the remarkable few who have united the
highest gifts to the noblest intentions.
Among the many styles of novel-writing popular to-day, two
great and extreme schools may be singled out for cleverness and
contrast. The one is a partisan of passion, the other a worshipper
of conventionality. The first breaks free from all social law, to
proclaim the sovereignty of feeling and impulse; the second paints
human life as necessarily bound in the fetters of fashion and
custom. In a certain class of French novelists we find the first
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■of these singular types of modern thought. It represents to us
vice rampant under the more attractive title of Nature, and with
out the sequence of punishment which Nature visits on the socalled votaries who profane her name. It depicts to us, in
eloquent writing, physical indulgence without limit, and also
without the consequent diseases which are its natural result;
caprice of feeling encouraged in both sexes to their mutual satis
faction, without the concomitant caprice of weariness, leading to
neglect and desertion on the one side, to melancholy or jealousy
on the other. To complete this theory, and indeed to render it
possible or endurable to any but the basest minds, the world is
pictured to us as holding only one generation. There are—in
these strange studies of human existence—-no aged persons suffer
ing for the vices of their youth, no young children bearing the
burden of their parents’ sins, no sons and daughters dependent
for comfort on the result of their father’s conduct. The present
is everything; and the present belongs only to those who are
young at the moment. No action brings an indirect and undesired
sequence. It is made to appear that if the unjust and arbitrary
punishment of social opinion could be removed, there would be
no punishment left for individual excess, no silent inevitable
working of that great Mother Nature who has been profaned,
and who bears in her bosom disease and death, as well as life and
love, the destruction of her children as well as their nourishment.
The reverse of this school is one which is highly popular in
England just now, being happily more tolerable to an English
mind than the eloquent glorification of vice can yet make itself.
It is a school which deifies custom and regards fashion almost
as a sacred thing. In the pages of its votaries no one endures
hunger, or runs about houseless; but some of the heroines suffer
keenly because the tablecloths are put on crookedly at their
homes, or the maid-servants present an untidy appearance when
they open the door to visitors. We have pictures of poverty
always closely pursued by vulgarity, and discomfort for ever
treading on the heels of limited incomes. The adherents of this
school do not deal, like Shakespeare and the poets, with the
permanent heart of humanity, which throbs with the same great
and simple impulses through all time. Their novels are little
more than pictures of a code of manners and tone of thought
which are woven out of the latest fashion, and will depart with
the newest. The heaven of the personages moving therein is a
higher social circle ; the amelioration of character to which some
of them are led through various trials is only an improvement
of manners; a favoured few are translated from the miserable
pit of vulgarity to a delightful knowledge of social etiquette :
still more of them are made happy by a sufficient staff of servants
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George Eliot as a Moral Teacher.
and an income large enough to secure a perpetual supply of the
right sort of furniture. In a clever novel which appeared a few
years ago, the heroine’s happiness is represented as hopelessly
lost while she persists in walking out in a bright silk dress ; but
when she renounces that sin against fashion, and enters into the
ways of good taste as translated by the brief caprice of the day,
life unfolds itself with bright promise before her; love and
admission to good society hasten, like twin goddesses, to her
embrace.
To neither of these two modern schools of fiction, did George
Eliot belong, and the best refutation of their sophistries or their
prejudices is to be found in her pictures of human life, which
surpass those of either school both in truth and beauty, and make
us understand that, on the one hand, no human soul is at peace
with itself or of use to the world until it grasps—amid the narrow
needs of to-day—the duties and capabilities of a whole life; and,
on the other hand, that a pure man or woman, living in true and
simple relationship to surrounding persons and things (which
cannot be without the fulfilment of duty), is free of fashion, and
stands above the stupid, unelastic laws of conventionalism.
“Adam Bede” is, perhaps, her masterpiece ; it is the book which,
of all she has written, keeps the nearest to the broad perpetual
stream of persistent human interests. Its style is clear enough
almost to escape our observation, the very perfection of the
medium causing it to elude admiration ; its suggestions of natural
scenery fill up the background of the characters without diverting
our attention from them, and rest in our minds longer than full
descriptions could do; the wit of its secondary personages
is no mere sparkle of words^ but full of tender and humorous
revelation of character: lastly, its plot is simple and clear,
fulfilling Mr. Ruskin’s demand that it should be “ handled
handily.
. . . Comprehensible, not a mass that both your
arms cannot get round; tenable, not a confused pebble
heap of which you can only lift one pebble at a time.'” And
it is worked out with so much power and pathos, such a
strong hand of truth carries the tragedy on to the end, that our
pitying protests are silenced; as the great poets silence us when
they move us most, convincing us that so—just as they have said
it—it was, and could not otherwise be. And we rise from its
perusal with a feeling that nothing can be said about this book
which it does not say for itself; only one answer need be given
to those who question its excellence, “ Read it.” If this does
not suffice, no dissertation or explanation can make a difference.
The story begins, like the actual tragedies of life, without
threats or evil omens, in clear gay sunlight, and minus the growl
ing of any melodramatic thunder. It goes on amid carelessness
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71
and laughter, amid ploughing, churning, and cooking, in an
atmosphere of scolding and kisses, gossip and flirtation, work and
leisure, and culminates so to a tragic and natural end. There is
nothing arbitrary here, no introduction of extraneous machinery
to punish the wrong-doers; there is indeed no interference of
obnoxious social and so-called artificial laws until the worst of the
tragedy is over. Hetty is not driven to her great sin because she
is cast away by her friends; they are still ignorant of her first
fault when she strives to destroy its unthought-of consequences
by a second. She is even convinced that she might find refuge
and help, beyond the need of further sin, with the pure and
loving Dinah ; but she wants more than this. She had begun
by playing at life like an irresponsible kitten, only to find after
wards in her own heart the complicated needs of a woman, selfesteem, respect of friends, an assured position, a natural guardian
for her child; all these she discovered to be necessary for her
own happiness, as well as the kisses and praise in summer weather
for which she had forfeited them all. dSTo unnatural picture is
here presented to us of remorse in a nature too narrow to under
stand sin in the abstract, Hetty is sorry for herself, not repentant
of her wrong-doing. This blind and cruel Mother IS ature whose
instincts she has followed (without any of those limitations of
intelligence and self-restraint, and outlook towards consequences
to others or ourselves, which we call virtue) has led her onwards
through the paths of self-indulgence to the way of self-destruc
tion. There is none of the original light-hearted Hetty left when
she emerges from the wood where her infant lies forsaken.
And yet, at the beginning, Hetty has been showm to us as a
natural picture of what is called by most persons innocence. She
has no evil intentions, she bears malice against no one, and has
no apparent leaning towards what is depraved and vicious. She
only loves herself, Hetty Sorrel, very well indeed; has a limited
appreciation of any other motive for action than the pleasure of
Hetty Sorrel; refuses to see any distinction between right and
wrong except as they visibly affect the present enjoyment of
Hetty Sorrel. She intends just to please herself and to mind
what no one else says ; and this terrible and unexpected end
comes upon her. The great dumb laws of Nature, which give us
no kindly warnings when we are breaking them, fall like an
avalanche on this feeble creature, and crush her utterly. In the
terrible consequences of her fault she looks back at the tempta
tion to it and finds it insufficient, not worth its results. The
selfish indulgence which brought her to this position makes her
keenly miserable in it. She wants to be comfortable ; she wants
to be well thought of; she wants to be married to a man who is
fond of her; she wants, in fact, good things which she can only
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George Eliot as a Moral Teacher.
get from other people, and of which she has already dissipated
the price. She would conceal her fault if she could, even now,
at the cost of murder, and go on cheating her friends with false
coin after the real is spent.
But here, also, she cannot succeed. She is not strong enough
anywhere. She has no more self-restraint in times of danger
than in times of delight; she only weaves the web of fate (which
is the sequence of character) more closely about her stumbling
feet. No dark and repulsive visions of that character rose before
us when she tripped in her loveliness and vanity through the
summer woods, nothing in the world seeming (in her own esteem)
too good for Hetty Sorrel; and yet, when we look back, we see
the end in that beginning. The harvest has ripened fast; but
it is the natural fruit of the seed sown.
The mysterious laws of Nature permit the partner of her wrong
doing to go freer than his companion from actual immediate
personal punishment. The consequences of his fault do not so
directly interfere with the circumstances of his life, and if he
had been a worse man he would have suffered less. But in his
sufferings George Eliot teaches us to perceive the best hope for
him. A man who could be happy while others endured misery
for his sin would have had to live afterwards with a companion
little better than a beast; that companion being himself. His
penalty would have been the degradation of his own nature.
The tragic story of Adam Bede is rendered doubly tragic by
its simplicity, by the absence of extraneous accident and adven
ture. We feel that this is no romance of fiction, but rather a
simple history of those easy beginnings of wrong which may all,
and which do some of them, work on to such an end. We under
stand, with Arthur Donnithorne, that we may be guilty of a
crime, even when we have not directly intended it, but have only
accepted the possibility of it in working out our own pleasures.
Scott has chosen a similar subject in “ The Heart of Mid
Lothian,” but he has not pictured Effie’s nature as so much
hardened by her sin as was Hetty Sorrel’s; he has also given to
Effie a strong maternal feeling. It is, however, one of the most
terrible consequences of such a fault as Hetty’s that it tends to
destroy the affections as well as the sacredness of motherhood,
and to convert that which should be a blessing into a burden
and disgrace. Certainly, the end of Hetty, the poor miserable
prisoner, never given back to the warm happy life she loved, stirs
us more keenly, and with a fuller sense of truth, than the uneasy
grandeur and dissatisfied fine-lady life of Effie Staunton. There
is another point in Sir Walter Scott’s great romance in which—
perhaps because, as men suffer less in such a tragedy than women,
a man must be less keen than a woman to perceive all its work
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73
ings—he falls short of the perfect justice which ought to follow
poetic perception, and deals out judgment like a mere novelist
who permits himself to have favourites among his characters.
This point is the history of Madge Wildfire. The great romancist
makes us feel in the delineation of George Robertson, or Staunton,
that his character would have been utterly repulsive if he had not
felt keenly Effie’s sufferings, and desired to make her the best
reparation in his power. And yet we perceive him indifferent
to the sad result of his earlier sin in the pitiable condition of
Madge Wildfire; we are expected to be indifferent ourselves:
because the poor creature is not revealed to us in the strong light
of the novelist’s compassion her madness becomes only an interest
ing incident in so much as it affects the fate of Effie Deans.
Again, a higher note of feeling is touched in the tenderness of
Dinah than even in the sisterly devotion of Jeanie Deans. The
brave Scotch lassie is inspired by the hope of saving her unhappy
sister’s life; the quaint M ethodist maiden sees no such blessed
chance before her, but she has a full assurance that all is not
lost even if Hetty must suffer the extreme punishment, an
assurance so sublimely strong that she feels capable of conveying
it to the poor miserable girl herself. Sin is worse than death,
love is stronger than either, is the divine teaching of every word
and action of hers, from the moment she appears at the prison
door until the terrible hour when she clasps Hetty in her arms
within sight of the scaffold.
On this one theme, then, George Eliot has worked out a truer
tragedy, because more sublimely simple and less involved in the
intricacies of romance, than her great predecessor.
When we come to her love-story—almost every great writer
having produced one love-tragedy pure and simple, as Shake
speare wrote “Romeo and Juliet,” Sir Walter Scott “ The Bride
of Lammermoor ”—we find the deficiency of a somewhat unworthy
hero. The tragedy of “ The Mill on the Floss ” is essentially one
of modern life ; in the parting of the lovers the voluntary sacri
fice so often demanded to-day plays the part of the cruel persecu
tion of old times. It is only by a delicate treatment of a difficult
subject that we are enabled to understand how Maggie can be
weak enough to drift into an affection for Stephen, and yet strong
enough to refuse to marry him. A sense of freedom to love, or
obligation not to love has, among persons living in habits of
self-control, more to do with the voluntariness of affection than
the theory of Walilverwandschaften would lead us to believe.
But Maggie’s situation was peculiar enough to leave her a sense
of freedom of feeling until the time for action came, then she
realized that she was bound. The perplexities of opposing
desires had grown strong enough meanwhile to destroy her peace
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George Eliot as a Moral Teacher.
of mind, but she was able to cling with a touching persistence to
the one conviction that it could not be right to work outlier own
happiness through the misery of others. The sense of what was
due to those who had trusted her, was as deep within her as the
passionate longing to be at last happy herself. She says, in one
of her moments of strongest temptation, “ The real tie lies in
the feelings and expectations we have raised in others’ minds.
Else all pledges might be broken when there was no outward
penalty. There would be no such thing as faithfulness.” And,
again, “ If life did not make duties for us before love comes, love
would be a sign that two people ought to belong to each other.”
Wherein, simply spoken, lies the moral of the whole matter.
From bright and handsome Maggie Tulliver to a miserly old
weaver the distance in subject is very great; but “The Mill on
the Floss ” and “ Silas Marner’’ both give us the same charming
pictures of English country life in the near past, and of quaint
English country people, with their simple ways and their curious
mode of talk. The sketches of childhood which they present to
us, like those in “ Adam Bede ” and in “ Scenes from Clerical
Life,” are full of tender womanly touches, justifying Mr. Swin
burne’s words of praise :—
{< Duty divine and Thought with eyes of fire,
Still following Righteousness with deep desire,
Shone sole and stern before her and above,
Sure stars and sole to steer by ; but more sweet
Shone lower the loveliest lamp for earthly feet;
The light of little children, and their love.”
Silas Marner, the poor old weaver himself, is a unique and
pathetic figure in literature. He is no miser from natural
greediness; his life has been narrowed for him, by the wrong
doing of others, to the smallest circle of interests on w’hich a
human soul can starve without actually dying. He is in himself
a good and simple old man, whom injustice may perplex, but
cannot sour. He recedes more and more from human companion
ship as he finds jt hurtful and fraught with pain, but he is not
embittered, only full of wonder.
George Eliot has a gift for the sympathetic rendering of the
characters of such good old men. She has given us a companion
picture in the minister in “ Felix Holt.” Not a few of us keep
in our memories a sacred place for some whom we have known
long ago, and who were not wholly unlike these pictures ; men
who were unlearned in the wisdom of this world, and yet knew
how to guide an infant’s steps with precepts which would help him
in after-life more than the books of the philosophers or the counsels
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of the worldly wise; men so pure in their unselfishness, so simple in
their truthfulness, so patient in their persistent diligence . in the
performance of duty, so unambitious in their expectations of
reward, so bravely straightforward and kind in the face of a
lying and cruel world, that we keep the memory of their lives as
a refreshing thought in the midst of the hideous careers and
almost as hideous precepts which are not uncommon in society,
to-day and always. Such of us who have reason to cherish these
sacred memories hold it not the least of George Eliot’s claims to
our gratitude that she has known how to depict to us, not
unworthily, this simple and excellent, this unlearned but wholly
incorruptible type of human nature. Others might have sketched
for us the same characters ; but they would have been exaggerated
probably into oddities, oddities whom we liked, but at whom we
must be permitted to laugh. And whoever thinks of laughing
at the poor old weaver, Silas Marner? Who does not rather
regard him with absolute tenderness, with a desire to smooth
the road for his failing steps, to keep the warp and weft of life
straight for his perplexed fingers ?
The youthful heroines of “ Felix Holt” and “ Silas Marner”
are different in many particulars and similar only in one. Hester
has a natural longing for luxury and refined society ; she acts the
fine lady and visits fine people, while Eppie hardly knows of a
higher world than the village circle in which she moves. But
they are both alike in their affection for the old men whom they
call father ; and it strikes us as no unnatural thing in the one or
the other that she should finally refuse to step out of the lowly
life to which her so-called father belongs, in order to possess riches
and dwell in grand houses. Faithfulness to her first lover is
entailed in the final choice of each girl, but we cannot consider
that the cause of the choice. It is rather the influence of the
quiet old man with whom she has lived so long, who has repre
sented to her all that is simplest, truest, and best in life ; the per
manent good among fleeting attractions; and whose image she
cannot imagine transferred to the grander houses, the finer society
to which she is invited. The supreme sincerity of George Eliot
is proved in nothing more strongly than in the fact that she leaves
us satisfied that her heroines should choose poverty rather than
wealth. We have no lingering regrets for the luxuries and the
good society which they lose thereby (regrets which would
prove that the spirit of the book had not prepared us sufficiently
for its end, which would make that end only an ambitious and
incomplete effort), we do not even think that Hester or Eppie
has behaved nobly, she seems only to have acted naturally in
refusing riches. How could the triumph of the author’s principles
be more complete ?
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George Eliot as a Moral Teacher.
This question of poverty has been dealt with very variously
by different writers; we may suppose that each has treated it
from the point of view at which it touched most keenly his own
nature. With many of the popular writers of the day poverty is
represented as being very vulgar or very uncomfortable. It is not
admitted that we may live in a simpler way, wuth fewer ap
pliances for pleasure and ease than others of our own rank, with
out being ashamed and unhappy; unless indeed we have a
deficiency of good taste.
With Thackeray poverty was always mean. He touched its
consequences more from the spiritual than the material side, but
still he made its influence debasing. He does not tell us, in
“ Vanity Fair,’"’ that Emmy's parents, when they lost their fortune,
had to sit on horsehair chairs and drink out of cracked cups;
but he sours the kindly mother’s nature strangely indeed. And
we know of nothing sadder in fiction, or more humiliating to
human nature, than the picture of Clive’s home in “TheNewcomes,” after misfortune had overtaken the household. The
horrible temper of the mother-in-law, the mean acquiescence of
the silly wife, the weak-spiritedness of the husband himself, form
a picture which even the courage of the old colonel fails to
redeem. To see a fine nature daily tormented by small insults,
because only of the poverty of the family and the angry discon
tent of the women, is too painful a spectacle. We want to shut
our eyes and turn another way.
Dickens, on the other hand, whether he liked poverty himself
or not, had a knack of depicting it as the most cheerful and
delightful thing in existence. As long as there was abundance
of money every one was melancholy, nobody behaved properly;
but when once want had looked in at the doorway, provided
that he did not actually force an entrance, all the world was as
blithe as a lark from morning to-night.
To live in a kitchen compels vulgarity in Mrs. Oliphant's
novels; it necessitates meanness in Thackeray’s; but in Dickens’
it is an assurance of joy, honesty, and content. A shining kettle
is a more inspiriting sight than any quantity of polished silver ;
and a man has hard work indeed to reach the highest pitch of
excellence if he is not also poor. Are not these views exaggerated
or one-sided ? Is there not a truer and a nobler picture possible,
in which the precise amount of income is a mere incident, not a
predominating influence on the lives of men and women ?
We find such pictures in Shakespeare and the poets, and if we
study carefully the stories of George Eliot we shall find in her
also a fine perception of the value of inward over outward things
in human life. She hardly touches upon the quality of her
heroines’ dresses or the number of their servants. If the question
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77
of costume comes in at all, it is with a consciousness that Eppie
may look as well in her print gown as Nancy Lammeter did years
before in her silvery silk. Lesser writers, when they are intend
ing an ultimate triumph to poverty and fine principles, cannot
forbear yielding little side tributes to the delights of the opposite
position; they will not go back to the flesh-pots of Egypt, but
they must describe them, how excellently the flesh was cooked,
in what delightfully artistic pots it was served. When Godfrey
Cass and his wife visited Eppie and her adopted father, it would
have been easy to indulge in a little description of the superiority
of Mrs. Cass’s dress and manners. Eppie might have been
represented as overcome by them at first, although her filial
affection for the weaver would have ultimately triumphed.
We should have known that she had proved her moral position
superior to that of the greater people, but we should have had
an uncomfortable consciouness of an outward inferiority at the
same time.
Eppie’s profound and yet natural simplicity saves her from
this humiliation. Having no longing for the actual good things
of a sphere above her own, she has no desire for even the
outward appearance of them. Her dress, her style of living, the
absence of much furniture in her home, do not, for a moment,
embarrass her clear mind or suggest the shadow of shame.
Why should she blush to be without things that it would be
wrong for her to get ? Why should she feel discomposed because
she had not that polish of speech which she could only have
obtained by neglecting her actual duties ? She is the right
thing in the right place, and it would have shown more idiocy
than intelligence to feel remorseful because she would not prove
the right thing in another place, which was not hers.
One of the most healthful, because the most natural, pictures
of middle-class poverty which literature has given to us is that
of the home of the Garths in “ Middlemarch.” It is a sketch
which shows to us the probable troubles of such poverty, the want
of means to apprentice the boys, the necessity for the girls to
leave home, and so on; but false shame has no place there.
Mrs. Garth goes on washing-up the breakfast things while the
vicar makes his call; and we straightway wonder why we ever
thought her occupation less lady-like than crewel work ; it does
not blunt refinement or debar intelligence. If she had wiped
her hands hastily and sat down, hot and discomposed, and tried
to look as if she had been doing nothing of the sort, we might
indeed have blushed with her, and ought perhaps to have blushed
for her. But if the authoress had been clever enough (as this
authoress would have been if she had put her talent in harness
to the prejudices of her time) we should have sympathized with
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George Eliot as a Moral Teacher.
Mrs. Garth, and might have thought, “ Could not her husband
contrive somehow to keep a servant to do this work ?” and our
hot indignation would have gone out to him; we should have
said that it was his duty to give up theories and to make money ;
that a man’s highest virtue was to look after the members of his
family and to place them in the best possible position. If
they begin life by keeping no servant he must strain his faculties
to procure them one; if they begin with one he must toil his
utmost to secure them two; and so on up all the steps of the
arbitrary social scale; and, if we could have had our own way,
a good man would have been spoilt; while clever, capable
Mrs. Garth would have sat with her hands before her in her
front parlour, trying to enjoy the nominal ease which her
husband had purchased too dearly. Mr. Garth had his faults,
however; and it was a great fault, almost an inexcusable fault
in so good a man, to make himself a surety for the good-fornothing Fred. He had no possible right to endanger the future
of his children, in order to oblige a self-indulgent, extravagant,
rich man’s son. He did not fail in his duty when he preferred
good work with little pay to bad work and more money; but he
did fail when he could not say “ no” to an unreasonable demand.
Good nature is sometimes a criminal form of self-indulgence ; it
is succumbing to the weakness of a moment; buying ease and
approbation on one occasion for ourselves at the cost of terrible
trouble and disappointment in the future, which will not fall
on ourselves only, but on others also who have a right to expect
thoughtful protection from us.
This novel of “Middlemarch” deals, more than George Eliot’s
earlier works, with the intricacies of an advanced civilization ;
and as sad as Dorothea’s blind seekings after a finer type of life
than was open to her in her limited sphere is the history of
Lydgate’s failures. The heroes of old time, the men who were
stronger than their fellows, are depicted to us struggling against
the brute forces of Nature, or warring against avowed adversaries.
The heroes of to-day must fight against their friends. Man has,
in a great degree, subdued Nature ; he has bridged the Atlantic
with his steamers, brought far distant lands within speaking
distance with his cables ; made, as we have often been assured,
the fire his servant and the lightning his messenger; but he has
become a more complicated animal than his forefather was, and
is more dependent on his fellow creatures. It is hard for him to
be entirely noble to-day, entirely free to choose the best course;
and Lydgate, though he began life from a good starting-point for
independence, and was not crippled by narrowness in his desires
or prejudices in his judgment, was not likely to keep his freedom
long. He had too much scorn of other men and of their influence
�George Eliot as a Moral Teacher.
79
on his life ; and yet it was partly by and through these men that
he had to work ; he could not be entirely independent, for they
were his instruments; he grasped the weapon of intercourse
carelessly, like a knife with which he meant to cut his way to
knowledge and success ; and the blade maimed him, where the
handle might have helped. His chosen pursuit lay amongst his
fellow men ; freedom to carry it out depended in a measure on
their approbation ; and yet he thought himself at liberty to
follow his own ideas entirely; he believed that the clue to his
success lay altogether in his single-mindedness. He was singleminded enough to deserve a better fate : but he was practically
wrong ; even from his own scientific point of view. If he had had
to calculate the course of a planet, he would have been too wise
to ignore the smaller influences while he gave the full weight to
the greater attractions. Yet he left out of the calculation for
his own course of life the innumerable small social bodies, highly
charged with heavy prejudices, through which he had to move.
The one act of his life which, taken singly, maimed him more than
any other, was his marriage. A good woman might have helped
him in many crises where Rosamond hindered. Dorothea had
made the mistake of supposing that the quality of tenderness
was not essential in a husband ; Lydgate followed it by the error
of believing that intellect was not necessary in a wife. It is
astonishing how many men, self-indulgent, strongly perceptive
of the requirements of their own comfort in other respects, deny
themselves the luxury of a household companion who is capable
of entering into their ideas and furthering their ambitions. It
was not, however, poverty of resource which compelled Lydgate
to put up with an inferior wife ; it was not that lie was without
the qualities that would have entitled him to win a noble woman.
He married Rosamond solely because he thought that she pos
sessed everything which a man required to find in his wife ; he
was not blinded by passion so much as led astray by a want of
consideration of the ultimate importance of the subject; just as
he had been in his dealings with the Mawmseys and Gambits,
the grocers and apothecaries of Middlemarch. If any one persists
in looking at his intended goal without regarding the obstacles
about his feet, he may easily break his leg over a wheelbarrow,
at a moment when a strong man would have opposed his pro
gress in vain.
Lydgate, the capable man baffled by his own mistakes, the man
of heroic resolve entangled in the web of other people’s mean
ness, is a solitary picture in George Eliot’s works. Adam Bede
kept his course straight to the end, and Tito Melema never pos
sessed any noble qualities. But Dorothea had her prototype in
Romola.
�80
George Eliot as a Moral Teacher.
Both these heroines made mistakes in their marriages; they
failed to find in their husbands the true men of their imagination,
and in their histories there is much noble teaching °for the
women of to-day. Surely the thought of Dorothea that “ how
ever just her indignation might be, her ideal was not to claim
justice, but to give tenderness,’ may keep, in the memories of
all good women, a place beside the lessons learnt from “ The
Queen’s Garden ” for help and inspiration. And for men and
women alike what subtle warning and suggestion are to be found
in these words from “ Romola
“ We prepare ourselves for
sudden deeds by the reiterated choice of good or evil which
gradually determines character.”
In “ Armgart” we are told that
“We must bury our dead joys,
And live above them with a living world.”
And, further, it is beautifully suggested to us—
“ Mothers do so, bereaved ; then learn to love
Another’s living child.”
For even sorrow has no right to be selfish ; there is always left
to us the hope of ministering to the joy of another.
We have seen how George Eliot could expound to us the
broad claims of the world’s brotherhood on individual lives, how
she could reveal to us in the human heart the small beginnings
of great crimes, how she could leave us satisfied with poverty and
unafraid of death: but she could also feel and express with
simplicity all the intensity of passionate personal devotion :—
“ Sweet evenings come and go, love,
They came and went of yore :
This evening of our life, love,
Shall go and come no more.
“ When we have passed away, love,
All things will keep their name ;
But yet no life on earth, love,
With ours will be the same.
“ The daisies will be there, love,
The stars in heaven will shine :
I shall not feel thy wish, love,
Nor thou my hand in thine.
“ A better time will come, love,
And better souls be born :
I would not be the best, love,
To leave thee now forlorn.”
�Working-Class Insurance as it is.
81
In the line “ I shall not feel thy wish, love,” is revealed all the
unselfishness which belonged to George Eliot’s conception of love.
She breathed an elevating spirit into every subject that she
touched, and her highest claim to our gratitude is not her literary
excellence, great as that is; not her wit, humour, or pathos; but
the noble purpose which gave to her genius a larger life. She
“ Saw the human nature broad,
At both sides, comprehending too the souls’,
And all the high necessities of art.”
And she always remained true to her highest perceptions.
Art. V.—Working-Class Insurance as it is.
1. Reports of the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies for the
year endinq December 31, 1879. Part I. (A.) 373—
Sess. 2. 1880.
2. Life Assurance Companies. Statements and Abstracts of
Reports for 1880. Pari. Papers. 1881. No. 216.
3. Paupers, Indoor (Members of Benefit Societies}. Pari.
Papers. 1881. No. 444?.
HE Annual Report of the Chief Registrar of Friendly
Societies is a document which deserves far more attention
than it usually receives. Its contents are of interest and value
to a much larger class than that which comprises the officers and
members of the Societies with whose affairs it specially deals.
The whole nation is concerned in the welfare of institutions into
whose exchequers such vast sums are being poured by its indus
trial population every year. These associations are far more to
the working classes than assurance companies are to the middle
and wealthier classes. To the latter, a life assurance policy is
often but a supplementary provision for the family when the
bread-winner is removed ; but for the immense majority of wage
earners, the Friendly Society or the Industrial Assurance Com
pany takes all that they can afford to put by against the “rainy
days ” and the dark days that are sure to come.
The
“ Society,” as they commonly call it, is their only resource, and
if that goes, everything goes, so far as provision for their families
is concerned. But, in the very nature of the case, the evil
results of failure cannot be limited to the immediate sufferers ;
the Poor-law must, sooner or later, make good the loss, and that,
of course, means that the entire community shares in the disaster.
In the opinion of the Chief Registrar, “ the current estimate
of =£2,000,000 yearly as being virtually saved to the Poor-rates,
through the operation of Friendly Societies, must be far within
[Vol. CXVII. No. CCXXXI.j—New Series, Vol. LXI. No. I.
F
T
�82
Working-Class Insurance as it is.
the mark?’ If this be the case, then on this ground alone, to
say nothing of higher considerations, the question of the sound
ness or unsoundness of these valuable institutions must be one
which concerns every person in the kingdom.
No more important document has ever been presented by
the Chief Registrar to Parliament and the country, than the
Report for 1879 which has been issued during the present year.
It enables us, for the first time, accurately to estimate the
financial condition of a not inconsiderable proportion of all the
registered Friendly Societies in England and Wales. For many
years serious doubts have been felt as to the actual solvency of a
number of these Societies, and, in order to test the truth of these
suspicions, Parliament enacted in 1875 that a valuation of the
liabilities and the assets of all Friendly Societies should be made,
at least once in every five years, by a competent valuer. The
form to be used in making a “ Return” of these valuations to
the department was prescribed, and the date within which the
first returns were required to be sent in was fixed at December 31, 1880. Only eighteen valuation returns were received by the
Chief Registrar in 1877, and no more than forty during 1878,
although in each Annual Report issued since the passing of the
Act, the obligation to make such returns has been most strongly
insisted upon. In 1879, however, 948 valuation returns were
received by the department ; and, in an Appendix of sixty-seven
pages, the Ghief-Registrar gives an abstract of these returns, in
the last Report presented by him to Parliament. (Friendly
Societies, &c., Report, 1879. Part. I.—(A).
It would be impossible to exaggerate the importance of the
information contained in this Appendix. At the date of this
report there were 15,379 Registered Friendly Societies and
Branches in England and Wales, 12,300 of which had made
the usual annual returns, showing an aggregate membership of
4,672,175, and total accumulated funds amounting to <F12,148,609
From tliis it appears that nearly one-fifth of the entire population
of the country were directly interested in the continued stability
of Friendly Societies ; any evidence which can be adduced upon
this point" must, therefore, be of the greatest possible value,
especially when, as in this case, it is evidence which is thoroughly
reliable. It is on this account that we invite the attention of
our readers to the valuation returns, of which an abstract is
placed before us by the Chief Registrar ; we have, however,
summarized its voluminous contents, and give the results in a
form which we trust no one can fail to understand.
Perhaps, however, it may be desirable briefly to explain what
a valuation is, and how it should be made, to be acceptable to
the authorities, and of real value to the members of the Friendly
�
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Victorian Blogging
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An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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George Eliot as a moral teacher
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 65-81 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From Westminster Review 61 (January 1882).
Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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Conway Tracts
English Fiction-19th Century
George Eliot
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Text
B
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national secular society
LORD BACON:
WRITE
HE
DID
SHAKESPEARE’S PLATS?
A REPLY TO
I JUDGE HOLMES, -MISS D. BACON, & MR. W. H. SMITH,
BY
I
CHARLES C. CATTELL,
Editor of “ Dawson’s Speeches on Shakespeare.”
‘ Know the grounds and authors of it.’—Twelfth Night, Act V Sc. 1
PRICE
(THE
PROCEEDS TO
TWOPENCE.
BE
GIVEN
RESTORATION
Printed
and
TO
THE
LIBRARY
FUND.)
Published
by
G. & J. H. SHIPWAY, 39, MOOR STREET, BIRMINGHAM.
1879.
�NEW
WORK
Just Published, Price One Shilling,
THE
BY
CHARLES C. CATTELL.
Opinions—1878.
“A very interesting little work.”—Newcastle Chronicle, March 16th.
“ A series of short biographies of illustrious men who have suffered
tribulation in this world. Apart from this [that some do not deserve
the title], the biographies are interesting and instructive.”—Birming
ham Daily Bost, April 23rd.
“ Might have been made a hundred times as long as it is............ But
this small work very creditably fulfils the purpose which is set forth in
the preface. ”— Weekly Dispatch. March 24th.
“The facts in the various ‘ lives ’ are well marshalled, and the leading
characteristics as well brought out as narratives so very condensed will
admit. The volume bespeaks a large and varied course of reading,
and has substantial literary merit.”—The Advertiser, March 23rd.
“Well worthy of perusal, having been judiciously done.”—Free
Press.
‘1A sort of handy summary of the Foxe’s Martyrs order, and abounds
cheerfully with the headsman’s axe, racks, knouts, and stakes at
Smithfield.”—The Dart, March 16th.
“The biographies are comprehensive, and written in a pleasing
pithy style. The love of freedom which permeates the whole volume
is not the least interesting feature in it.”—Daily Mail.
“It is an excellent work of its kind; and, being very cheap, it
will doubtless find its way into the hands of the young working men
for whom it is adapted.”—7'ruthseeker.
“ Mr. Cattell has compiled a short history of each martyr, the lite
rary merits of which do him as much credit as the generous prompt
ings which led to such a task being undertaken. ’— Brtlish Mercantile
Gazette.
Published by CHARLES Watts, 84, Fleet Street, London.
�BID LORD BACON WRITE SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS?
BY
CHARLES
C.
CATTELL.
O some this is an old question, but it is not so old as some
other questions by many thousands of years. Many who
possess the volume entitled “Shakespeare’s Works” are
altogether indifferent as to when or by whom the plays and
poems were written. Then there are the idolaters who regard
the utterance of a doubt, as to Shakespeare being the author,
as gross infidelity, a species of blasphemy against “the divine
William.” But a wise scepticism is a healthy sign in this age
of reason, this age of intellectual activity—such as was never
before seen in the history of mankind. Old and wise heads
have settled this and many other questions to their own satis
faction ; but a new generation seeks solutions of its own, and
desires to discuss and settle questions, unawed by all authori
ty but the evidence, by which alone a thoughtful man is
guided. This humble contribution to the discussion is intended
to serve those whose time or opportunity does not permit them
to consult more expensive and voluminous books on the subject.
Some persons are angry with the heretics ; but it may be
fairly taken as a very high compliment to the genius of
Shakespeare, that his plays and poems are considered worthy
of the pen of so profound a philosopher, scholar, and master
mind as Lord Bacon.
T
�4
Those who think this is a fight with phantoms, a firing into
the air at nothing in particular, should be informed that in
1875 a new edition of Judge Holmes’s work was published,
containing 696 pages, setting forth the claims of Lord Bacon.
Besides this, there is a work by Miss Delia Bacon of 582 pages,
and one by W. H. Smith of 162 pages, and others.
The position taken by the heretics is that Shakespeare was
only a poor strolling, vagabond player—who not only could
not be the writer of the plays or of anything else, except his
own name, and that so badly that it is still an open question
whether he knew how to spell it.
On the other hand, Lord
Bacon could write, was a scholar, and lived at the same time,
in the same country, as Shakespeare, and therefore he might
have written the plays and poems. Dr. Watts laid down as a
sort of logical canon that what might be might not be.
One
argument against Lord Bacon is that several literary men of
eminence, who lived at the time, in the same country, do not
say he wrote the plays, but give the credit of authorship to
William Shakespeare.
The words these men wrote, about Shakespeare being the
author, were published at the time, form part of our national
literature, and remained undisputed for more than 250 years.
Besides Ben Jonson, Francis Meres, and others, Earl
Southhampton calls Shakespeare his “especial friend” and
describes him as the “writer of some of our best English
plays ”
John Milton, in 1632, only a few years after the death of
Shakespeare, which occurred in 1616, sings to his memory a
hymn of praise. Heminge and Condell, who played with him,
were on friendly terms with Earl Pembroke, and had, so far
as we know, thirty years good character, published the plays
�5
and poems in 1623, as we now have them, under the name of
William Shakespeare; and at the same time under their own
signature claimed him as their friend and the author of the
hooks they edited.
In order to sustain the claims set up for Lord Bacon we are
compelled to take refuge in the assumption—that men of
learning, scholars, pure and noble characters—-entered into a
conspiracy to deceive mankind to all eternity, or, otherwise,
that they were the most weak, deluded, drivelling, soft-headed
fools that ever were permitted to breathe the air of Great
Britain. Either they lied or were imposed upon, and neither
one nor the other is laid to their charge—or, instead of being
quoted as ornaments to their age, they would be described as
impostors or idiots.
The so-called arguments of the heretics are made up of
11 if’s,” “hut’s,” and “might he’s.” Those who put forth no
arguments on their side are the most difficult writers to answer
or refute : but the reasoning of the heretics admits of illustra
tion, if not of refutation.
The following will illustrate their method, supposing they
described it as I should:—There was a plague in London; Charles II. was King, and
John Milton was a poet. Now John Milton was poor, and old,
and blind—and had no power over the elements,the army or
the government—but the king had control over the govern
ment and its administration, and therefore he “ might ” have
had something to do with the plague. Although we have
held the opinion for more than twenty years that the King
caused the plague, we never hoped or expected to be able to
prove any such thing!
One conclusive proof against Milton
is he left no manuscript giving instructions about the plague ;
�6
neither did the King, but no doubt he wrote them.
Having
sent a copy of our work, showing that the King caused the
plague, to a gentleman who has devoted many years to writing
a life of the King, and he having thanked us for it, and also
given us his opinion—that our theory and statements are
totally unsupported by facts, and are incredible and absurd
beyond all question ; we think it necessary to bring out anew
edition of our valuable work, which we find is supported by
other independent writers, who have proved nothing at all, and
of whose existence we were entirely ignorant at the time we
wrote our own views on the same subject.
Judge Holmes makes a point of the fact that no manuscript
has been found of Shakespeare’s own writing : but if that
proves anything against him it is equally fatal in the case of
Bacon who has also omitted to leave us manuscript of his
Tragedies and Sonnets.
Dr. Ingleby suggests that Shakes
peare’s manuscripts may have been taken to London by his
friend Ben Jonson, and that they may have been burnt at the
fire which took place at Jonson’s house. Heminge and Condell say they had Shakespeare’s manuscripts of his plays and
poems to print from, but I am not aware of any one having
said that much of Lord Bacon’s. Bacon’s works were not
published till after twelve of the plays, so that plagiarism
would be extremely difficult, especially as his works contained no
plays or sonnets.
Here we have Lord Bacon busy writing his great works,
and having them carefully done into Latin; and we are asked
to believe that at the same time he wrote the same sentiments
(for their evidence consists of parallel passages only) in
sublime tragedies, known and played before, and placed to
the credit of a writer whose name was not Bacon. Moreover
�7
these Dramas which have won the praise and admiration of all
nations were in his eyes such inferior rubbish, that he allow
ed them to remain in English instead of having them done
into Latin to be preserved for posterity. Any one who knows
Bacon’s character knows that that is just what he would not
have done.
The assumption necessary for the heretics’ case is that Bacon
not only wrote the sentiments in majestic prose, about which
there is no dispute; but that he also made the same sentiments
do duty twice—in the second instance they appear in the form
of sublime dramatic poetry—the writing of which he confessed
himself incompetent, and the heretics produce no evidence that
he either could or did.
Holmes says it is ‘ historically known’ that Bacon wrote plays
and poems ; but does not say to whom this history was known,
or who wrote it. Ellis gives a list of fifty persons who wrote
in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, but Bacon is not one.
Bacon wrote in fulsome adulation of his friend James, but did
not produce a sonnet on his accession to the throne, but he did
produce some wretched prose, altogether unworthy of his pen.
It certainly is recorded by himself that he 'prepared a sonnet’
as ' a toy,’ in 1599, to please the queen, and in the same docu
ment he says he did not profess to be ‘a poet.’
It is also‘historically known’ that he ‘assisted’ in preparing
a masque, and the part he did was ' the dumb shows,’ and
the rest was done by others. Another proof that Bacon wrote
Shakespeare is that he wrote a metrical version of the Psalms
of David. I can only make out that he paraphrased VII of
them, and if any body else had produced such—I hesitate to
say what language critics would have used about the VII. To
produce any force, the parallel passages, to prove identity of
�8
authorship, should have been taken from Bacon's tragedies
and sonnets, about which no dispute has taken place because
even their existence has not yet been established. Bacon’s
biographer says—if he did not write the plays of Shakespeare,
of which we have no proof, there is no evidence that Bacon
could write Dramatic Poetry. True enough, say the heretics,
but if he did, which he
that is evidence that he
could. Verily there is “much virtue in ?/.”
Any one reading the plays would infer that the writer had
some knowledge of the stage, and was not unacquainted with
Warwickshire, and even Stratford-on-Avon : —and ‘if Bacon
did not write them, some other person ‘might'' who had some
knowledge of both. The author ‘might' have been a player,
‘if he had once lived on the banks of the Avon.
Of course
Bacon lived at a time when his parents ‘might' have resided
in Warwickshire, and he ‘ might' have obtained some know
ledge of the stage, ‘if' he was a player, although it is not
“ historically known " these mights are in any sense rights.
It is urged that all the difficulty is occasioned by Bacon’s
concealment of his name as a Dramatist; because that character
was unpopular in his time. A more conclusive reason, to my
mind, is the fact that he was unknown to be able to sustain
the character—and that the reason why his name was con
cealed, as the writer of Shakespeare’s plays, was because he
did not write them—and that purely through his lack of
ability to do anything of the sort, as he himself confessed in
writing.
Let any one compare Bacon’s version of the Psalms with any
Tragedy or Drama, attributed to Shakespeare, and see what
sort of an idea can be obtained of a parallel. There is as much
difference between the writings of Bacon and the Plays as
�9
there is difference in the characters of the philosopher and
the poet.
Shakespeare has keen described as honest, open,
gentle, free, honourable and amiable; while Bacon has been
described as ambitious, covetous, base, selfish, unamiable and
unscrupulous. Now, taking these two descriptions as a fair
index of their souls—which is the more likely to have por
trayed the women of Shakespeare’s plays ?
The reasons given for concealment lose all their force
when we remember that Bacon’s complete works were not
published till 1635, one year before he died.
He lived long
enough to see the end of his plays ‘ if’ he wrote them ; so
that the excuse which he ‘ might ’ have had, when a young
rising ambitious man, could not do duty at the age of sixty.
Besides, his friend and servant Ben Jonson had placed the
plays and poems, many a long year before, high up above all
the productions of the genius of the human race. To suppose
a man like Bacon dying and leaving such works unowned—•
leaving them to be fathered by a poor despised player, who
could but just sign his name for cash received from the Queen
and King for acting before them—is—what ? To assert that
such is within the limits of probability is unmitigated twaddle.
It is a known fact that Bacon was very anxious about how
he should appear to posterity—and yet we are asked to believe
that he allowed his plays, ‘if’ he wrote them, which he
might not, to come down to us, published under his very eyes,
with 20,000 errors.
Then there is the important point that Shakespeare had
little or no education--very irregular—short in duration—and
the absence of proof that he ever went to school at all—and
if he did go—he must have begun to write before he was
qualified either by college or university.
�10
At the very starting point in this investigation the presump
tion is that the boy Shakespeare was totally unprepared for
the office of poet at the time when he was busy at it. Now, ‘ if
he did go to school, his father being a yeoman and having
served as chief magistrate, he ‘ might ’ have had an education
like his friend Lord Southampton.
Ben Jonson says Shake
speare had “small Latin and less Greek,” so that it seems
quite possible that he obtained these at some school—and is it
too much to assume that his friend Ben, who was a scholar,
could, and would, and did assist him ?
Many of the books he ‘might' have read in English, ‘if
that be added to his Latin and Greek, which is not impossible,
as he lived at a time when English was spoken and written.
Surely Ben Jonson would help his ‘beloved author ’ to Ovid
and Virgil, about the only two he would want besides trans
lations. It should be remembered that much of Shakespeare
is the work of genius observing nature and man, and that he
does not write alone as books enable and as colleges teach.
He may also have in some measure resembled Pope, Goldsmith,
and Burns, whose education was not of a very high order •
but they, as also Dryden, Milton, Coleridge, and others
began to write before they were twenty, Milton being a fair
classical scholar at 17. Shakespeare having, according to Emerson, “the best head in the universe,” and some knowledge
of Latin and Greek, and some mysterious mental power sur
passing that of the wisest of the ancients, he might have been
able to produce some of the great works which make his name
immortal, without being Lord Bacon in disguise, or the mere
puppet of the great philosopher, who had as much to do with
the plays as the writer of this.
�11
Holmes cites a number of passages from Bacon containing
the same words and illustrations as are found in Shakespeare’s
plays, and asks “ can all this be accidental ?”
Yes : but if
not, things that are equal to the same thing are equal to one
another : so that if parallels prove identity of authorship, the
inference that Shakespeare wrote Bacon is as logical as the in
ference that Bacon wrote Shakespeare. The evidence consists
solely of similarity of expressions, as the following will illustrate.
Bacon writes that he remembers in a chamber at Cambridge
there was “ a pillar of iron erected for a prop,” in another
place he speaks of “ Ancient pillars.”
Shakespeare also speaks of “ a prop to lean upon,” “ props
of virtue,” “pillars that stand to us,” and “deserving pillars of
the law.” To me this only proves that both used the words
pillar and prop. Bacon speaks of “the finger of God.”
Shakespeare speaks of “the fingers of the powers above.”
Bacon speaks of “ the soul having shaken off her flesh.”
Shakespeare speaks of “ when we have shuffled off this mortal
coil.” Bacon speaks of “ the mole that diveth into the darkness
of the earth.” Shakespeare says—“ old mole ! canst work i’
th’ ground so fast ? ” Bacon writes—
“ As a tale told, which, sometimes men attend,
And sometimes not, our life steals to an end.”
Shakespeare writes :—
“ Life is as tedious as a twice told tale,
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.”
Bacon :—“ The great navies look like walking woods.”
Shakespeare :—
“Anon, me thought,
The woods began to •move.”
It should be noted that the last two quotations from Bacon are
�12
translations from the Psalms, so that, if they prove any
thing, they prove that Shakespeare was written by King David.
Holmes discovers that the plays were written between 1582
and 1613 ; Bacon at the same time living thirty-one years,
from 21 to 52, “ corresponding exactly to that portion of Ba
con slife in which we may most easily suppose they could have been
written by him.” Shakespeare also lived thirty-one years dur
ing the same period, corresponding exactly to that portion
of Shakespeare’s life from 18 to 49, in which we may easily
suppose he wrote some of the plays.
This would be very easy
indeed if we took Holmes as a guide. For instance, in speak
ing of the style of Heminge and Condell’s affectionate dedication,
he says, “it is much more nearly that of Bacon; but it may very
well have been Jonson.” Again, Holmes says, there are traditions
that Jonson severely criticised Shakespeare’s productions,
and was envious of his fame—“and from these it should be
inferred that Jonson could not really have believed that
Shakespeare was the actual author of the works.”
While reading this sentence it will be well to bear in mind
that Jonson paid the highest compliment to Shakespeare’s
genius, and that Holmes himself contends that the works so
“ severely criticised ” were written by no less a person than
Lord Bacon. If we believe in Holmes and his logic, Jonson
was a fool in criticism and a liar in eulogy.
Holmes quotes a postscript from a letter by Tobie Matthew
to Lord Bacon, in which allusion is made to a ‘ ‘ most prodigi
ous wit ”—“ of your Lordship’s name, though he be known by
another.”
Who else could this refer to but Shakespeare?
He calls this a “very remarkable piece of evidence.”
To me
the sentence is by no means clear—as to whom it refers —
is a kind of literary conundrum—the true answer to which,
�13
Judge Holmes himself has not, in my opinion, yet discovered.
The sentence to me is remarkable as evidence of an
obscure style of letter writing, and of interest, or even intelligi
ble, only to the initiated correspondent.
Miss Delia Bacon, whose sincerity is indisputable, since she
sacrificed her reason and her life in pursuing this subject,
states that she will not place any value on Ben Jonson’s evi
dence in favour of Shakespeare’s authorship until he has ex
plained why he did not mention to the author of the “ Advance
ment of Learning ” the name of the author of ‘‘ Hamlet” as,
she says, two such remarkable persons “ might like to meet each
other.” She offers no evidence that Jonson did not do this, or
that they did not meet.
The imputation upon the honour of
Jonson is therefore unsupported, except by thejgreat argument
which the heretics fall back upon on all occasions, which is
founded on the fact that all the historians and biographers are
entirely silent on the subject.
This comes with great force
because historians and biographers so seldom agree, but on this
point they are unanimous, in saying nothing !
She may be excused for her enthusiasm since she believed
she had discovered “hidden treasure” under the surface of
Shakespeare’s plays, although for years she had been a
student of the bard, and, like all the rest of the world, found
only beautiful ideas clothed in the most majestic words of one
of the greatest living languages.
But she, with keener eye
than ordinary mortals, saw, “under the surface of Shakepeare’s plays,” the philosophy of Sir Walter Raleigh, and the
imperishable thoughts of Lord Bacon, the father of the induc
tive method. Strange as this may appear to some—it is mar
vellous what hidden things may be discovered in any great
book, if you gojzo it with a theory preconceived, and with a
�14
settled purpose of finding in it some support to your theory.
A remarkable illustration of this is found in the case of the
English Bible. A thousand discordant sects fly to the book of
books in search of illustrations and facts and sanctions to en
force their views, and they come back loaded with texts innum
erable with which they pelt each other for hundreds of years.
Moreover they not only thus fight each other but they combine
to pelt all who differ from the whole of them with a vigour
that can only be appreciated by those who have been engaged
in what Coleridge’s coachman called “something in the oppo
sition line.”
My contention is, that if you did not first catch your hare
you could not cook it, that if you did not get your theory first
you would not find it in the book nor the facts in support of it.
I read Bacon’s essays before Shakespeare’s plays and
the thought that one man wrote both was not suggested, and
such a thought would not be suggested by the reading only—
not to one man in a million—and still it might be so—it might
still be true that one man was the author of both.
The mul
titude do not make discoveries. The discoverers of truth, the
proclaimers of truth, and the defenders of truth, have in all
ages been the few—-the minority of the human race.
These facts should be constantly borne in mind, so that per
sonal abuse, persecution in any form, should not be possible
among the students, or even among the admirers, of literature,
art, and science. In the words of Shakespeare, let it become
a common truism, and not the insulting concession called toler
ation, that “ Thought is free.”
Mr. W. H. ^Smith contends that in Bacon alone are to be
found the vast variety of talents possessed by the writer of
Shakespeare’s plays.
�15
The best answer I can give is that the talent required, above
all others, is the ability to write such dramatic poetry as the
book contains, and which cannot be traced to Lord Bacon.
Mr. Smith considers similarity of ideas or coincidence of
expressions unreasonable, and not to be expected, yet here we
find them in the following pointed instances.
Bacon speaking of reputation uses these words “because of
the peremptory tides and currents it hath ” and Shakespeare
says “ There is a tide in the affairs of men.”
Bacon relates an anecdote about a man named Hog, who
claimed kindred on account of his name. Sir N. Bacon replied
“ Ay, but you and I cannot be kindred except you be hanged ;
for Hog is not Bacon until it is well hanged.”
Shakespeare
has also used the words hang, hog, and bacon.
Evans—“Hung, Hang, Hog.”
Dame Quickly—“Hang, Hog is the Latin for Bacon.”
Mr. Smith points out that the word ‘ Essay ’ was new in
Bacon’s time, and yet Shakespeare uses it once, Bacon uses it
as a title.
If the use of the same word by two authors who lived at the
same time proves that one wrote the works of the other, there
wonld be no difficulty in proving that Judge Holmes wrote the
book of W. H. Smith, or vice versa.
As a matter of fact he has been charged with copying Miss
Delia Bacon. In his defence he says that if it were necessary
he could show that for twenty years he had held the opinion
that Bacon was the author of the works of Shakespeare. Such
a declaration would lead any reader to expect something very
conclusive,—yet at the end of his volume he says “ we shall
be told that the sum of the whole does not prove that Bacon
wrote the plays.
We have never said or insinuated that we
hoped or expected to prove any such thing,”
�16
The value of an opinion, although like this of Mr. Smith’s,
may be twenty years of age, depends on the facts which support
it. Any opinion of which there is no hope or expectation is
hardly likely to obtain converts, and maybe very justly left to
expire with the name of W. H. Smith.
IN THE I-'NESS.
TO SUBSCRIBERS ONLY, 2/6.
GREAT MEN’S VIEWS
ON
SHAKESPEAKE,
BY
This work will contain the opinions of the leading writers on
the subject in Germany, France, America, and England.
Subscribers names to be sent to
G. & d. H. SHIPWAY, 39, MOOR ST.,
BIRMINGHAM:.
G. & J. H. SHIPWAY, 39, Moon Street, Birmingham.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Lord Bacon: did he write Shakespeare's plays? A reply to Judge Holmes, Miss D. Bacon, & Mr W.H. Smith
Creator
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Cattell, Charles Cockbill
Description
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Place of publication: Birmingham
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Other works by Cattell advertised on page [2] and back cover. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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G. & J. H. Shipway
Date
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1879
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N122
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Literature
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Lord Bacon: did he write Shakespeare's plays? A reply to Judge Holmes, Miss D. Bacon, & Mr W.H. Smith), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Authorship
Francis Bacon
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Shakespeare