xt7x959c5z7s https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7x959c5z7s/data/mets.xml Johnston, William Preston. 1890  books b92-235-31281086 English Belford Co., : New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Hamlet. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Macbeth. Prototype of Hamlet, and other Shakespearian problems  / William Preston Johnston. text Prototype of Hamlet, and other Shakespearian problems  / William Preston Johnston. 1890 2002 true xt7x959c5z7s section xt7x959c5z7s 

















THE PROTOTYPE OF HAMLET

 This page in the original text is blank.

 



THE



PROTOTYPE OF HAMLET

                   AND



OTHER SHAKESPEARIAN



PROBLEMS



            BY
 WM. PRESTON JOHNSTON





       "Look into the seed of time
And say which grains will grow and which will not."
                   -MacbetA, 1, 3.











        NEW YORK:
BELFORD COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
     18-22 EAST 18TH STREET

 



















































































PA-NTp.O A.D SO.e' D.1G COMPANY,
      ...sg

 






















            TO MY WIFE,

   MARGARET AVERY JOHNSTON,

WITH WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT AND APPROVAL

    THESE LECTURES WERE WRITTEN,

             THIS BOOK

         IS DEDICATED.




Aprl 2ath, Zigo.

 This page in the original text is blank.

 


                   CONTENTS.



                      LECTURE FIRST.

                HOW TO STUDY SHAKESPEARE.

The growth of literary aspiration. Definition of true litera-
  ture: one form of the Church of God, holy, catholic and
  apostolic.  Implicit moral culture of the drama.  Shake-
  speare's popularity and hold upon the thought of the world.
  Advantages of Shakespeare as a study; interesting, stimulat-
  ing to the reason and esthetic sense; the best aid in study of
  rhetoric, of philology, and of literature. Should be a study,
  not a pastime. Method of study must depend on point of
  view.  Richard Grant White's dictum of reverent study.
  Dogmatism of commentators. Where Shakespeare's writings
  are to be found.  Description of First Folio, by Richard
  Grant White. Rectification of errors. Different aspects of
  academic instruction in study of Shakespeare, of which the
  ethical is the highest
Method of study. Beware of too ambitious a design. Part
  better than the whole. Study from the historical standpoint;
  value of the Chronicle Plays; value of the Ronsan Plays.
  Julius Caesar, for educational purposes. First step; to read
  it. How to pursue the study. The traveller's method of
  comprehending a city-Rome. Reconnaissance first, then
  critical study. Shakespeare and Plutarch. The sidelights
  and specific points of interest in Julius Cesar. Each play
  must be studied with reference to its central idea. Illustra-
  tions of this canon.  The Tragic Quadrilateral ; Lear,
  Othello, Macbeth and Hamlet. Natural movement and pro-

 


8



CONTENTS.



  cess of tragedy; from cause to crisis; thence, through its
  consequences, to the catastrophe.  Illustration by triangle,
  or by Gervinus' arch.  Shakespeare preserves our sense of
  moral proportion by adherence to this canon .............. 17


                    LECTURE SECOND.

                           MACBETH.

Self-knowledge; its attainment under the light of intelligence
  and charity. The aid to be found in literature, the message
  of one man's genius to all men's hearts. The perennial sway
  of genius. Shakespeare, the supreme poet. His personality,
  his genius, his psychology.  Macbeth, his greatest poem.
  H allam's opinion ; Drakc's, Campbell's, Gervinus'.  Its
  incompleteness in detail.  An outline, or a torso   Swin-
  barne's view.  Shakespeare's great heroic drama.    Its
  grandeur. Its problem obvious, but grand and pathetic.
  Hamlet and Macbeth, psychological complements ; the
  vacillating will, the lawless will. Web of the plot ; the story
  told. Felicity in selection of time, place, plot and theme of
  this tragedy; the time, a golden age; Scotland, a mysterious
  land; regicide, a timely and exciting theme; the problem, a
  contest for a human soul.
The Supernaturalism of Shakespeare. Popular beliefs as sym-
  bols of unseen forces. The first words of a play its keynote;
  illustrations. The Weird Sisters. Shakespeare's intuition of
  the loathsomeness of evil. The Weird Sisters real beings,
  tempters, mousing owls of Satan, but with no power over the
  conscience or will. Character of Macbeth at outset: lofty,
  valiant, energetic, imaginative, blunt, reticent, lawlessly
  ambitious. Ile entertains the temptation. His wife's part.
  I)uncan's innocence. The chiaro-oscuro of murder.  The
  action and reaction of murderous purpose.  Character of
  Lady Macbeth. Shakespeare's absolute artistic perceptions
  ins delineating characters illustrated. The feminine recoil in
  Lady Macbeth, and her remorse and death.     Macbeth's
  indomitable energy and courage. The consequences of guilt;

 


                        CONTENTS.                          9

  the delusive promises of Satan; moral isolation. The lesson
  of Macbeth: temptation, guilt, perdition. " Fear God and
  keep His commandments..".    ...................... 41


                     LECTURE THIRD.

                THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HAMLET.

The primacy in letters. Homer's place; Shakespeare's. The
  Baconian paradox; its weakness.  Comparison of Bacon's
  actual gifts with Shakespeare's. Goethe's inspiration from
  Shakespeare.  Coleridge's estimate.  A world literature
  impossible to any writer.  Shakespeare's true relations to
  literature, and first place in it. Hamlet, his greatest crea-
  tion.  Comparison with his other plays. Its defects and
  limitations but lays bare a human heart. Our debt to Goethe
  for touching key-note of its meaning. Extracts from 'Wil-
  helm Meister discussing the play. Lecturer's modifications
  of same. Werder's antagonistic interpretation.  W. W.
  Story's criticism of the German critics. Coleridge's inter-
  pretation ; Lowell's. Manifold solutions of the play, espe-
  cially by the Germans; Carl Karpf, Rcetschl, Freiligrath,
  Sievers, Rohrbach, Benedix, Rapp, Voltaire, Chateaubriand.
  Was Hamlet's madness real or feigned  Representation,
  the province of the poet. Shakespeare's purpose in Hamlet
  to portray a man, and the defeat of the human will. Hamlet
  and Macbeth are complements, illustrating individual re-
  sponsibility for our actions. How these questions are an-
  swered in each. Macbeth teaches the duty of rectitude of
  will; Hamlet, of decision of will. Influence of Shakespeare's
  germ of doubt on modern skepticism.   Robert Elsmere.
  Amiel's Journal. A Hamlet in real life. No escape from
  the responsibility to act. The hesitation in the hero of Ham-
  let and the unexpectedness of the catastrophe necessary parts
  of the tragic purpose. The lesson enforced, not in a type or
  abstraction, but by portraying an individual man. Was it
  himself Kreyssig, Kenney, Hazlitt. - It is we who are Ham-
  let."  " A No Philosopher; " the evolution of a human soul

 




  in its totality presents a portrait. Hamlet's situation beyond
  his powers. His self-condemnation. Poetry is creation, not
  analysis. Each character a portrait, plus Shakespeare.
  Hamlet a likeness of the poet and of ourselves also-and of
  another. An image of the philosophic soul paralyzed by
  defect of will. The lesson of prompt and resolute action.... 12


                    LECTURE FOURTH.

                THE AUTHORSHIP OF HAMLET.

Their value my apology for extensive quotations in last lecture.
  Who wrote the original Hamlet Three plays so named.
  The accepted version, or last Hamlet, based on Quarto
  Second, undoubtedly Shakespeare's.  The First Quarto.
  Their titles. Their variance. Three theories to account for
  the intrinsic character of Q l; ist, A mangled copy of Q 2;
  2nd, Clarendon Editors', partly Shakespeare's based on an
  older play by another hand; 3rd, an older form of play, but
  Shakespeare's own. When Q 2 waswritten. Footnote on
  the Inhibition. Title-pages of the two Quartos express their
  real difference. How Q x came to be printed. Q 2 an evo.
  lution from Q x. Q I probably an actor's copy used at the
  Universities, but essentially Shakespearian. The First Ham.
  let a hypothetical play, not extant; probably differing some-
  what from Q 1. This original draft generally assumed not
  to be by Shakespeare. Burden of proof on those who deny
  his authorship. Halliwell takes alien authorship for granted.
  Review of evidence. Clarendon Editors believe it unworthy
  of Shakespeare in 1589. Who was adequate to the task
  Fleay's conjecture of Marlowe's joint authorship. Most
  opponents of Shakespeare's authorship argue from his want
  of ability or preparation at that time. These arguments and
  the Clarendon theory mutually destructive. The youthful
  Shakespeare not equal to his later self, but superior to all
  others. Probable date of composition of First Hamlet in
  1587. C. A. Brown's opinion of its authorship. View of
  Knight and others. Value of opinion of Clarendon Editors.



CONTwENTS.



to

 




Francis Meres' list of plays considered. His opinion of
Shakespeare. Incorrect inference from his List. Temporary
eclipse of Hamlet in 1596, and reasons for its final revision
then. Malone's theory of Kyd's authorship. His incongru-
ous and untenable grounds. Skottowe, Collier, Dyce, Fleay,
Symonds, on this point.  " The play within a play " as
evidence. Other instances of same. No evidence at all of
Kyd's authorship, and Marlowe's share a mere surmise.
Shakespeare alone equal to it. Shakespeare's, the only trag-
edies that survive. Two bands of literary wreckers at work
on Shakespeare. Elze's argument from Euphuism, of an
early production of Hamlet; also of its evolution from Ham-
net's birth and death. Nash's allusion in 1589.  Fleay's
belief controverted that this refers to Shakespeare as an actor
only. "The Noverint."   Greene's " Shakescene " in 1592.
  Chettle's apology. Henslow's Diary says Hamlet was acted
  in 1594. Lodge's reference in r596. Summing tup of the
  evidence. The positive evidence all in favor of Shakespeare's
  authorship.  Flimsy character of the negative evidence.
  Shakespeare's genius phenomenal, but not abnormal.  His
  long continued and undisputed title to this play and his
  transcendent genius sufficient grounds for our belief. Incor-
  rect notions of genius. Its elements. Shakespeare's con-
  formity to its criteria. The author of First Hamlet ........ 1o5



                     LECTURE FIFTH.

                 THE EVOLUTION OF HAMLET.

Shakespeare, the founder of the romantic drama. The other
  dramatists, his successors and disciples. The exception, the
  University Group. Fleay' surmise of collaboration with
  Marlowe. Comment. Marlowe's ability. Baselessness of
  the conjectural criticism that assigns Shakespeare's plays to
  other writers. His competitors were contemporaries rather
  than predecessors. Lyly and Peele ; Marlowe. Argument
  based on Shakespeare's intellectual sterility, irrational; that



CONTE2VTS.



11I

 




on his youth, equally so. Marlowe's case. Undisputed con-
temporary opinion the only proof of authorship by any of the
dramatists of that day. Their personal obscurity. Shake.
speare's education.  Ben Jonson's estimate of him. His
small indebtedness to others. His theatrical career. Venus
and Adonis. His ability to write the original Hamlet. Other
instances of equally precocious genius. Objections to Shake-
speare's ability ever to have written his plays. Smith's
"Bacon and Shakespeare."   Theory of his nonentity con-
sidered. Bas he a lawyer's clerk  Lord Campbell's book;
Cartwright's. Inferences from hi, legal phraseology in [lam-
let. Public disregard of dramatic authors. Hartley Cole-
ridge's favorable deductions from the absence of proof of evil
against them. Shakespeare's worth as a man. Little known
of personality of writers even now. Contemporary opinion
of Shakespeare ; Ben Jonson, Meres, Weever, Sir John
Davies' verses. Shakespeare's call to the stage and his rapid
rise.  His dramatic method and creative faculty.  The
co-operative mode of producing plays; their plots. Growth
of Hamlet. Revision in 1596. Reasons for it. Its pessimism.
W. WV. Story's criticism.  The personality in Hamlet.
Hamlet's death. Shakespeare's dream and waking. Pos-
sible disappointment in friendship. The dregs of sin. Entry
in Stationer's Register in 16o2. Erroneous inferences. The
Last Hamlet saturated with Shakespeare's personality.
  Hamlet, an evolution. The particular portrait becomes the
  mirror of all mankind .................................. 134




                     LECTURE SIXTH.

                 THE PLOT OF HAMLET.

Toleration and fanaticism in critical literature.  The full and
  final significance of Ilamlet not contained in first draft. The
  highest ideals often originate in the least ambitious designs.
  How Shakespeare came to create Hamlet; the times, the



COAMSEirTS.



I 2

 




  environment, the antecedents. The spirit of the age. Eliza-
  bethan England, an era of awakening, action and question-
  ing. The demand for truth. The intense nationality and
  patriotism of Englishmen and of Shakespeare. His reverent
  skepticism. His purpose in writing this play. Shakespeare
  a poet, but also a courtier, a play-writer and a patriot. Pol-
  itical uses of the drama
The political situation in 1586. Covert war. Elizabeth and
  Mary Stuart. Public demand for death of latter. All of
  Shakespeare's patrons among her enemies. Her execution
  determined on. Attitude and character of James VI of Scot-
  land. The Master of Gray's letter.   King James to be
  appeased. All means tried. The play as a political device;
  instances. Loyal rage against Mary. Her death. Eliza-
  beth's tortuous repudiation of it and peril to her Council.
  Justification needed. The rebuke of regicide and of vacilla-
  tion illustrated in Hamlet.  Probability of Shakespeare's
  employment. Dramatic fecundity of the day. The plot of
  Hamlet fits the case of the murder of Darnley. A pattern
  for it twenty years old. Sir Wm. Drury's Letter. Proto-
  types of the persons of the drama. My adoption of this
  theory. Rev. Mr. Plumptre's pamphlet in 1796. Furness'
  summary of it. Resemblances of plot of Hamlet to the
  murder of Darnley. Likeness of'Hamlet to King James in
  character. Silberschlag's support of same theory. Com-
  ments of Moberly and Hunter. Confirmation of arguments
  by discovery of Q I in 1823. Grounds for this theory are:
  1st, the motives of British Government for employing this
  device; 2nd, resemblance of plot and details to death of
  Darnley, and similarity of character of Hamlet and James.
  Where and what is Shakespeare's Denmark. Its identity
  with Scotland, illustrated by geography, customs and per-
  sonal traits of the characters. Lowell's comment on the
  condition of social transition in Hamlet. Scotland exactly
  answers it. James VI's personal legacy of revenge. His
  vacillating and equivocal nature and policy. Hamlet's self-
  reproach for hesitation in revenge. Suggestions of the play
  to the King ...........................................z 6o



CONTENTS.



1 3

 




                   LECTURE SEVENTH.

                THE PROTOTYPE OF HAMLET.

Origin of plot.  Saxo-Grammaticus.  Belleforest's version.
  The English translation. Unlikeness to the play. Its date.
  Contrasts. Comparison of legend and the play. The brief
  widowhood of Mary Stuart and Gertrude. Their marriage
  with the murderers. The physical beauty of The Ghost and
  of Darnley, and the ugliness of Bothwell and Claudius. The
  tenure of the royal title. The title of Claudius as King
  Consort, legal. Note on "imperial jointress."  Succession
  by bequest. Hamlet's claim. Dilemma of Hamlet. His
  irresolution.  Revenge for regicide taught him as a duty.
  The penalty of a refusal of responsibility. The " Blood.
  Tragedy," "' Hamlet, Revenge ! ", a stepping-stone to
  Shakespeare's promotion.  The son of murdered Darnley
  naturally the prototype of the son of murdered Denmark.
  Identity in character. Sir Antony Veldon's sketch of James.
  Scott's, in "IThe Fortunes of Nigel." The Venetian Ambas-
  sador's sketch. Bishop Hacket's. Comparison of James
  with these accounts. To Shakespeare and English loyalists-
  the Coming Man, the Prince! Hamlet fits into this char-
  acter. Is the creation of an ideal organic man in fiction pos.
  sible without an actual archetype in real life  Only mortals
  become immortal, like Hamlet. Portraiture is representa-
  tion of an organism as viewed in the mind of the artist.
  An ideal is an image with something of the artist put into it.
  Hamlet, at first altogether James, was evolved, by Shake-
  speare putting himself into it. A Kentucky theory of Ham-
  let as " a scoundrel."  His brutality to Ophelia; his projects,
  plots, indirections, quibblings, and cowardice. Contrasts in
  James and Hamlet accounted for........................
Argument based on Hamlet's age. The same as James'.
  Thirty years old in 596. Proofs. Only twenty when play
  first written in i586. Proofs. Supposed inconsistency be-
  tween first part of play and last due to the Revision. Furni-
  vall; l1alliwell's unauthorized sacrifice of the text. Peren-
  nial youth of fictitious characters. Real people grow older.



CONTrENTS.



14

 

                    CONTENTS.                         1 5

Hamlet grew older. "I Full forty years " changed to " Full
thirty years," in the Revision. Goethe's portraiture of Polo-
nius; of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. BothweUl's Confes-
sion. "' The beauteous majesty of Denmark." Froude's
Mary Stuart. Swinburne's apostrophe to her. Who was
Fortinbras  Summing up of the evidence. The body of
Hamlet is James; the Divinity that animates him, Shake-
speare ................................................ 192

 This page in the original text is blank.

 

                PREFACE.



  THE lectures contained in this volume were pre-
pared for the senior classes in Tulane College and in
the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College for young
women. But, in deference to a wish expressed by
many lovers of literature, they were included in the
courses of free public lectures on literature and
science, delivered each year in Tulane University to
the people of New Orleans. Having proved accept-
able to large and intelligent audiences, they are now
submitted to other students who take an interest in
the subject, with the hope that they may add some-
thing in the way of suggestion to a reverent and
intelligent study of the great dramatist.
  The author has adhered to the form of lectures
in which the subject was originally presented, since
it was the spontaneous cast of his thought, and
probably contains " more matter with less art" than
if he should attempt to conform it to a more regular
model.
  In his interpretation of Shakespeare, truth, not
novelty, has been the writer's aim; and this, he

 



believes, is to be found in the broad lines laid down
by the giants of philosophical criticism, rather than
in the iridescence of paradox, as illustrated in lesser
lights.
  The chief problem and main contention in these
papers is, however, for a proposition that may strike
the reader as probable, plausible, or possibly pre-
posterous, according to his point of view. The
theory is maintained that, in his original conception
of Hamlet, Shakespeare found the prototype of the
Prince in James VI. of Scotland, and that the plot
was greatly influenced by political events arising
out of the murder of Darnley and the execution of
Mary, Queen of Scots. The hypothesis is nout alto-
gether novel, but the present writer arrived at it by
independent study, and has maintained it by facts
unknlown to the first propounder.  Whether coi-
vincing or not, it is thought that the theory is founded
on1 sound induction, and will, at least, prove
curiously suggestive. If the readers of this book
receive from it a small proportion of the pleasure
the writer has felt in consulting the sources from
which it is derived, he will be amply repaid; aidi
his object will be wholly attained if these lectures
shall be accepted among the judicious as in any
wise a valuable contribution to that body of Shakes-
pearean study which is doing so much to stimulate
and elevate the thought of our race.
                          WM. PRESTON JOHNSTON.
    TULANE UNIVERSITY,
NEW ORLEANS, La, April, 1890.



I 8



PREORA CE.

 

THE PROTOTYPE OF HAMLET

                     AND

    OTHER SHAKESPEARiAN PROBLEMS.



      HOW TO STUDY SHAKESPEARE.

        "What is the end of study  let me know."
                          Love's Labor's Lost, I, r.

  IT is a matter of general remark that, in the last
few years, literature has become fashionable in New
Orleans. This means more than at first sight appears.
It means that our people, and especially our women,
have set for themselves a higher ideal than the old-
time dance and piano; and I say this without the
slightest disrespect for these or any other legitimate
forms of recreation. The feeling has come home to
our best and strongest women, those who mould and
sway the opinions of the mass, that they must not
delay to enter into that higher realm of thought
which lifts humanity, even so much as one step,
nearer to the Divine Archetype. And they have
judged aright when they decided that this was to be
found in the best literature. For the best literature
embodies the best thought of the highest thnkers,

 

20       THE PRO TO TYPE OF HAMLE T.

addressed to the hearts of all mankind. That true
literature is the mother of culture, none will gainsay
who have nursed at her breast. Literature, to be true,
must be holy, catholic, apostolic. It is one form of
the Church of God, one medium by which the Divine
spirit, through human means, reveals the divine truth
to human-hearts. It is not true literature unless it is
holy, holy in every sense, healthgiving and inspiring
to the moral nature; catholic, addressed to all hearts,
to our common humanity; apostolic, the divine mes-
sage, the truth once delivered to the saints, the gos-
pel or word of God carried forth to the world by
those who are heaven-chosen to that end. Let me
say, once for all, that any specious form of falsehood
or diablerie, any ministration to the baser nature of
man, is neither true art nor true literature.  It is
sham and veneering that will blister and peel and go
to pieces under any honest heat of discussion. That
an aspiration for true literature exists to-day in New
Orleans is, therefore, certainly a most encouraging
feature of our society.  The question is how this
University may contribute somewhat towards grati-
fying so generous an impulse.
  To this end we have had the honor this year,
through the kindness of Professors Ficklen and For-
tier, to open up to you a view of the early dramatic
literature of England and France, the beginnings of
the Drama; for, strangely enough, under the much
mixed morality of the Drama, its masquerading and
its rough and robust wrestling with truth, wve often
perceive the ethical problem more clearly than when
formulated as sententious morality.  It is ill no

 

AND OTHER SHAKESPAARIANP JROBLEAfS. 2I



spirit of depreciation or disparagement of other forms
of literature, however, that we invite you to some
studies in the drama, pointing out a pathway for
your footsteps rather than attempting to garner for
you its full sheaves. History and fiction are of the
utmost importance for both training and inspiration,
and may evoke the highest powers of mind and
soul. Poetry warms the heart, kindles the intellect,
and exalts the imagination. But in no other depart-
ment of literature is the implicit moral culture which
reveals character-growth more effective than in the
Drama.
  When we speak of the Drama the mind naturally
reverts to the plays of Shakespeare. Next to the
Bible they have the strongest hold on the thought
of the civilized world. Without inquiring here into
the cause, such is undoubtedly the fact They fur-
nish an inexhaustible field for the ingenuity of the
commentator, whether his criticism touches on the
archeology, the philology, or the philosophy, con-
tained in the text. In them the psychologist realizes
the evolution of human character in its artistic com-
pleteness, under the pressure of moral circumstances
and of temptation, while the great, uncritical public
consumes edition after edition of his works, and
notes, essays, and commentaries innumerable, with
as real a sense of gratification. The rude boards of
the provincial theatre and the great temples of dra-
matic art alike resound to the utterances of the bard,
century after century, while boasted rivals seem but
an ephemeral and flitting fashion, to-day in vogue,
to-morrow forgotten. The popularity of Shakespeare

 

2 THE PR0T70TYPE OF HA ML E T,



is apparently limitless and growing; and if, some-
times, it exhibits the absurdities and erratic motions
that deform every cultus and every form of hero-
worship, yet we cannot disbelieve that it rests upon
a real foundation, and that a solid substratum, a
true bed-rock of genius, underlies the masterpieces
of the prince of dramatists. One great advantage
to be derived from the selection of Shakespeare as a
study by those who are entering upon the pursuits of
literature is that his works are deeply interesting;
and it is hard to over-estimate the importance of a
genuine interest in the subject of any study.  It
means present vigilant attention, vivid apprehension,
clear and complete conceptions, fresh and enduring
recollection. It means business. It means mastery,
It means appropriation, use, ownership, of a subject.
  But these plays are not merely current coin ; they
are thought-breeders.  They arouse the dormant or
sluggish imagination. They people the mind, not
with lay figures, but with living beings, who cry
out continually to the heart and soul, "Awake;
beware." They present the problems of existence,
not in formulas, but in concrete men andt women,
saying, doing, and thinking, as we say, do, and
think, and subjected to the immutable law of moral
cause and consequence. Hence Shakespeare's plays
are a philosophy more profound than the Dialogues
of Plato and the Socratic discussions, in that they
are exactly conformed to nature.
  If the literary models of Greece and Rome are
the sole standards of art, the dramas of Shakespeare
are no, art, because they vary from these standards.



22

 

   AND OTHER SkAAESPEARIAN PROBLEMS. 23

But if a Gothic cathedral embodies art, though in
forms infinitely more complex, as truly as the
Parthenon, then Hamlet, as well as Antigone, is
art  If the landscapes of Church, or the drawings
of Dor6, are legitimate expressions of our esthetic
nature as surely as bas-reliefs from Athens or
Olympia, then the Merchant of Venice and the
Tempest are as true to fundamental art canons as
the Iliad, the Aecestis, or the Birds. Shakespeares
creative genius constituted a new cycle of art, the
cycle of nature as distinguished from that of con-
ventional form; and what can be more inspiring
than to receive the key to a new realm of art
  Shakespeare, next to the Bible, is the best manual
in which to study rhetoric ; and for the simple reason
that rhetoric is the science and art of most effectively
expressing thought in language, and in Shakespeare
the language does not merely clothe the thought,
but actually embodies it. His "beauties," as they
are called, admirable thoughts couched in words of
exquisite fitness, have entered into the proverbial
philosophy of the British race; it may be said,
indeed, into the body of aphoristic wisdom of the
whole world.  The sayings of the persons of his
drama have crystallized into gems of thought, and
longer passages linger, like familiar strains, in aged
and weary memories.
  These works afford opportunity for the least irk-
some form of philological study. When language
study is pursued by the historical method, backw ard
or forward, we find in the sunburst of the Shake-
spearean drama its most vivid andimaginativeform,

 

4THE PROT 0 TYPE OF HAvMLE T,



and a phase absolutely necessary to a complete
comprehension of the genius of the English tongue.
  Many will be found to agree with me that for
a serious study of English literature, whoever else
may be named as second, Shakespeare must be
placed first. He is to us what Homer was to the
Greeks. I may say, though with diffidence, he is
more. He is our teacher, master, educator, in that
prime philosophy, a knowledge of the human heart.
Should we not make his works, then, a study rather
than a pastime If it be wise to sit where the
chance drops of his world-wisdom may fall upon
and bedew our robes, were it not better to go forth
like him who walks in an April shower, when spring
scatters her jewels with prodigal hand, till all our
garments are moist and saturate with the descending
floods  Is it not better to be the disciple of the
largest and most liberal sage in all our literature
than to speak in the words of any other master
  But let us suppose it admitted that Shakespeare is
the most, or at least a most, desirable study for the
lover of literature, how are we to get the best results
from such study The method to be adopted must
of course depend largely on the end in view, and
will vary with the age, attainment. experience, and
tastes of the student; and it must also depend largely,
of course, upon the special culture of the teacher, and
the standpoint from which he approaches his subject.
But it may be laid down as a fundamental canon
in the study of literature that it must be pursued in
the literature itself, and not in what is said about it.
That fierce Shakespearian, Richard Grant White,



24

 

   AND OTHER SHAKESPEARIAN PROBLEMS. 25

says of his book, "Shakespeare's Scholar: " " It
attempts not to decide what Shakespeare might have
written or what he could have written, or to seek the
interpretation of his thoughts from those who pro-
claim themselves his prophets, but to learn from him
what he did write, and to study to understand thiai in
the submissive yet still inquiring spirit with which a
neophyte listens to the teachings of a revered and no
less beloved master." And then he goes on to casti-
gate "the editors, commentators, and verbal critics,"
rejoicing that he has " kept free from the contamina-
tion and perversion of their instruction."
  While Mr. White was undoubtedly correct in his
main idea, and a very good understanding may be
had of the current of Shakespeare's thought by
reverent and unaided study of his text, few readers
will be found to agree with him, when he says, " It
is folly to say that the writings of such a man need
notes and comments to enable readers of ordinary
intelligence to apprehend their full meaning." It all
depends on what the notes are. The methods pur-
sued by the commentators of the last century, the
egotistic and elephantine dogmatism of Warburton
and Johnson and the wild guesses of many others,
are enough to provoke a more saint-like temper than
Mr. White's. They are well parodied by that critic
who said, "Shakespeare could not have written:
       'Sermons in stones, books in the running brooks,
       And good in everything '
that was nonsense. He must have written : 'Ser-
mons in books, stones in the running brooks;' those
werejacts that could be proved."

 

THE PRO TO TYPE OF HA ML E T,



  "A reverent study," as White says, will, however,
accomplish much. Indeed, this is the main thing;
study, not skirmishing. Many, I trust, will be found
in this audience willing to devote their time to this
study, and it will be the object of this lecture, with-
out attempting at all to exhaust the subject, to fur-
nish a few hints that may prove useful to such as
are in earnest in the matter. And I may say here
that I feel all the real difficulties involved in my
present attempt, which must presuppose in my
audience an interest already established in the topic;
and I must rely for success more upon the instruc-
tion conveyed than upon the amusement that is
generally looked for in the lecture-hall.
  Having determined to study Shakespeare, the first
step to be taken is to discover where his writings are
to be found, as he wrote them. After almost three
hundred years of shifting and change-of process-
the text has nearly, though not quite, settled down to
a standard, which may, or may not, be