O wretched prince! ne doft thou yet recorde Thus fatall plagues purfue the giltie race, i The wicked child thus bringes to wofull fier Destroye the parted reigne with hatefull ftrife: And hence doth fpring the well, from which doth flo, Every Act is introduced, as was the custom in our old plays, with a piece of machinery called the DUMB SHOW, shadowing by an allegorical exhibition the matter that was immediately to follow. In the construction of this fpectacle and its personifications, much poetry and imagination was often displayed. It is fome apology for these prefigurations, that they were commonly too mysterious and obfcure, to foreftal the future events with any degree of clearness and precifion. Not that this mute mimicry was always typical of the enfuing incidents. It fometimes ferved for a compendious introduction of such circumstances, as could not commodiously be comprehended within the bounds of the representation. It fometimes fupplied deficiencies, and covered the want of business. Our ancestors were easily fatified with this artificial supplement of one of the most important unities, which abundantly filled up the interval that was neceffary to pass, while a hero was expected from the Holy Land, or a princefs was imported, married, and brought to bed. Still, omitt. edit. 1565. i This, edit. 1565. Very, a worfe reading, in edit. 1571. 1 Mournings, edit. 1565. m A& iii. Sc. ult. mean time, the greater part of the audience were probably more pleased with the emblematical pageantry than the poetical dialogue, although both were alike unintelligible. 66 66 I will give a specimen in the DOMME SHEWE preceding the fourth act. "First, the mufick of howeboies began to plaie. "Duringe whiche, there came forth from vnder the ftage, as thoughe out of hell, three Furies, ALECTO, MEGERA, and "CTESIPHONE ", clad in blacke garments sprinkled with bloud "and flames, their bodies girt with fnakes, their heds spread "with ferpents instead of heare, the one bearing in her hande "a snake the other a whip, and the thirde a burning firebrande: "eche driuynge before them a kynge and a queene, which moued by Furies vnnaturally had flaine their owne children. The "names of the kinges and queenes were thefe, TANTALUS, "MEDEA, ATHAMAS, INO, CAMBISES, ALTHEA. After "that the Furies, and thefe, had paffed aboute the stage thrife, "they departed, and then the muficke ceafed. Hereby was "fignified the vnnaturall murders to followe, that is to faie, "Porrex flaine by his owne mother. And of king Gordobuc " and queene Viden killed by their owne subjectes." Here, by the way, the vifionary proceffion of kings and queens long fince dead, evidently resembles our author Sackville's original model of the MIRROUR OF MAGISTRATES; and, for the fame reafon, reminds us of a fimilar train of royal spectres in the tentscene of Shakespeare's KING RICHARD THE THIRD. I take this opportunity of expreffing my surprise, that this oftenfible comment of the Dumb Shew fhould not regularly appear in the tragedies of Shakespeare. There are even proofs that he treated it with contempt and ridicule. Although some critics are of opinion, that because it is never described in form at the close or commencement of his acts, it was therefore never introduced. Shakespeare's aim was to collect an audience, and for this purpose all the common expedients were neceffary. No 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 fuperiority of a mind, which either would not be entangled by the formality, 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 uninterefting nature of the plot, the tedious length of the speeches, the want of a difcrimination of character, and almoft a total abfence 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 basest 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 fuch 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 ог 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 interefts is fuch 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 phrafeology, which does not seem to have taken place till play-writing had become a trade, and our poets found it their interest to captivate the multitude by the false sublime, 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 also 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 counfellors are introduced debating about the division 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 argument will never fupply the place of action upon the stage. Not to mention, that these 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 ftrain 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 fenfe, couched in clear expref fion and polished numbers. I fall first produce a specimen from the speech of Aroftus who is ftyled a Counsellor to the King, and who is made to defend a specious yet perhaps the leaft rational fide of the question. And in your lyfe, while you shall so beholde Their rule, their vertues, and their noble deedes, Such as their kinde behighteth to vs all; Great be the profites that shall growe thereof: Your lastinge age fhall be their longer ftaie : Their yet greene bending wittes with reuerent awe, г As now inured with vertues at the first. Custom, O king, fhall bringe delightfulnes : By vfe of vertue, vice shall growe in hate. • Partie, edit. 1565. Fathers, edit. 1565. It is, edit. 1565. • And, edit. 1565. |