dramatic writer of his age has more battles or ghosts. His representations abound with the ufual appendages of mechanical terror, and he adopts all the fuperftitions of the theatre. This problem can only be refolved into the activity or the superiority of a mind, which either would not be entangled by the forma lity, or which faw through the futility, of this unnatural and extrinfic ornament. It was not by declamation or by pantomime that Shakespeare was to fix his eternal dominion over the hearts of mankind. To return to Sackville. That this tragedy was never a favorite among our ancestors, and has long fallen into general oblivion, is to be attributed to the nakedness and uninteresting nature of the plot, the tedious length of the speeches, the want of a discrimination of character, and almost a total absence of pathetic or critical fituations. It is true that a mother kills her own fon. But this act of barbarous and unnatural impiety, to fay nothing of its almost unexampled atrocity in the tender sex, proceeds only from a brutal principle of fudden and impetuous revenge. It is not the confequence of any deep machination, nor is it founded in a proper preparation of previous circumftances. She is never before introduced to our notice as a wicked or defigning character. She murthers her fon Porrex, because in the commotions of a civil diffenfion, in felf-defence, after repeated provocations, and the strongest proofs of the baseft ingratitude and treachery, he had flain his rival brother, not without the deepest compunction and remorfe for what he had done. A mother murthering a fon is a fact which must be received with horror; but it required to be complicated with other motives, and prompted by a cooperation of other causes, to rouse our attention, and work upon our paffions. I do not mean that any other motive could have been found, to palliate a murther of such a nature. Yet it was poffible to heighten and to divide the distress, by rendering this bloody mother, under the notions of human frailty, an object of our compaffion as well as of our abhorrence. But perhaps these artifices were not yet known or or wanted. The general ftory of the play is great in its political confequences; and the leading incidents are important, but not fufficiently intricate to awaken our curiofity, and hold us in fufpence. Nothing is perplexed and nothing unravelled. The oppofition of interests is such as does not affect our nicer feelings. In the plot of a play, our pleasure arises in proportion as our expectation is excited. Yet it must be granted, that the language of GORDOBUC has great purity and perfpicuity; and that it is entirely free from that tumid phraseology, which does not feem to have taken place till play-writing had become a trade, and our poets found it their intereft to captivate the multitude by the falfe fublime, and by those exaggerated imageries and pedantic metaphors, which are the chief blemishes of the scenes of Shakespeare, and which are at this day mistaken for his capital beauties by too many readers. Here alfo we perceive another and a strong reason why this play was never popular. Sir Philip Sydney, in his admirable DEFENCE OF POESIE, remarks, that this tragedy is full of notable moralitie. But tragedies are not to inftruct us by the intermixture of moral fentences, but by the force of example, and the effect of the story. In the first act, the three counsellors are introduced debating about the divifion of the kingdom in long and elaborate speeches, which are replete with political advice and maxims of civil prudence. But this ftately fort of declamation, whatever eloquence it may difplay, and whatever policy it may teach, is undramatic, unanimated, and unaffecting. Sentiment and ment will never fupply the place of action upon the stage. Not to mention, that thefe grave harangues have fome tincture of the formal modes of addrefs, and the ceremonious oratory, which were then in fashion. But we must allow, that in the strain of dialogue in which they are profeffedly written, they have uncommon merit, even without drawing an apology in their favour from their antiquity: and that they contain much dignity, strength of reflection, and good sense, couched in clear expref Z z 2 argu fion fion and polished numbers. I fhall first produce a specimen from the fpeech of Aroftus who is ftyled a Counsellor to the King, and who is made to defend a fpecious yet perhaps the leaft rational fide of the queftion. And in your lyfe, while you fhall fo beholde Their rule, their vertues, and their noble deedes, Great be the profites that shall growe thereof: Your age in quiet fhall the longer last, Your laftinge age fhall be their longer ftaie: For cares of kynges, that rule, as you haue rulde, Partie, edit. 1565. • It is, edit. 1565. Which endes your life, fhal firft begin their reigne, Voide of fuche stayes as in your life do lye, The greatest peftilence of noble youthe: From an obfequious complaifance to the king, who is prefent, the topic is not agitated with that opposition of opinion and variety of arguments which it naturally fuggefts, and which would have enlivened the difputation and difplayed diverfity of character. But Eubulus, the king's fecretary, declares his fentiments with fome freedom, and feems to be the most animated of all our three political orators. To parte your realme vnto my lords your fonnes, But worst of all for this our native land: W Within " one lande one fingle rule is best. In wordly stage the statelieft partes to beare, States, edit. 1565. To free randon, edit. 1565. "Act i. Sc. ii. w For with, edit. 1565. * Natural. The 66 The mightie Brute, firft prince of all this lande, What waft of townes and people in the lande ? The illustration from Brutus is here both appofite and poetical. |