Perhaps, what I have here not dogmatically but deliberately written, may recall the principles of the drama to a new examination. I am almost frightened at my own temerity; and when I estimate the fame and strength of those who maintain the contrary opinion, am ready to sink down in reverential silence; as Æneas withdrew from the defence of Troy, when he saw Neptune shaking the wall, and Juno heading the besiegers.' It will not be out of place, I trust, to give here an extract from the Dramaturgie of LESSING, the finest Shakespeare-scholar Germany has given us. It was written in 1767, two years after Dr Johnson's Preface, just quoted, and is one of those sledgehammer blows, with which, delivered in the interest of Shakespeare, Lessing demolished Voltaire and Voltaire's influence in Germany: It is one thing to circumvent rules, another to observe them. The French do 'the former, the latter was understood only by the ancients. Unity of Action was the first dramatic law of the ancients; Unity of Time and 'Place were mere consequences of the former which they would scarcely have ob'served more strictly than exigency required had not the combination with the Chorus arisen. For since their actions required the presence of a large body of people and 'this concourse always remained the same, who could go no further from their dwell⚫ings nor remain absent longer than is customary to do from mere curiosity, they were 'almost obliged to make the scene of Action one and the same spot, and confine the 'Time to one and the same day. They submitted bonâ fide to this restriction; but 'with a suppleness of understanding such that in seven cases out of nine they gained 'more than they lost thereby. For they used this restriction as a reason for simpli'fying the action and to cut away all that was superfluous, and thus, reduced to essentials, it became only the ideal of an action which was developed most felicitously in 'this form which required the least addition from circumstances of time and place. The French, on the contrary, who found no charms in true Unity of Action, who had been spoilt by the wild intrigues of the Spanish School, before they had learnt 'to know Greek simplicity, regarded the Unity of Time and Place not as consequences of Unity of Action, but as circumstances absolutely needful to the repre'sentation of an action, to which they must therefore adapt their richer and more 'complicated actions with all the severity required in the use of a Chorus, which, 'however, they had totally abolished When they found how difficult, nay, at times, 'how impossible this was, they made a truce with the tyrannical rules against which 'they had not the courage to rebel. Instead of a single place, they introduced an 'uncertain place, under which we could imagine now this, now that spot; enough, if 'the places combined were not too far apart and none required special scenery, so 'that the same scenery could fit the one about as well as the other. Instead of the unity of a day, they substituted unity of duration, and a certain period during which no one spoke of sunrise or sunset, or went to bed, or at least did not go to bed more 'than once; however much might occur in the space, they allowed it to pass as 'one day. 'Now no one would have objected to this; for unquestionably even thus, excellent 'plays can be made, and the proverb says: hew the wood where it is smallest. But 'I must also allow my neighbour the same privilege. I must not always show 'him the thickest part, and cry, "You must cut there! That is where I cut!" Thus the French critics all exclaim, especially when they speak of the dramatic 'works of the English. What a to-do they then make of regularity, that regularity 'which they had made so easy for themselves! But I am weary of dwelling on this 'point! As far as I am concerned, Voltaire's and Maffei's Merope may extend over eight 'days and the scene be laid in seven places in Greece! if only it had the beauties to 'make me forget these pedantries! The strictest observation of rules cannot outweigh 'the smallest fault in a character.'—[Mr Beasley's and Miss Zimmern's translation, Bohn's Series, p. 369.] DURATION OF ACTION IN the fierce light which beats' on Shakespeare's plays the time over which the action extends has not escaped scrutiny. To count the evening and morning of the First day, and of the Second, and of the Third, and so on, requires, it might be supposed, no great skill beyond a careful reading of the play, and an elementary knowledge of arithmetic. But in carrying out this simple process it is found that something more is needed than a mere enumeration on the fingers; a strange interlacing of past and present time is revealed; yesterdays are crowded into to-day, and to-day is swept backward into the past; yet no jar is noted in the steady onward movement of time. In Othello, probably the most striking example, by counting the time in the right butterwoman's rank to market, we find that from the hour when Othello lands in Cyprus to the minute when his hands stop the breath of Desdemona, barely thirtysix hours of solar (not dramatic) time have passed. In The Merchant of Venice, Shylock's bond for three months runs its full course in three days, yet nothing amiss is perceived. Something more, then, than simple arithmetic is needed. This strange compression of days into hours, and expansion of hours into days, cannot be fortuitous, it must be the effect of art. It behooves us, therefore, to trace, if we can, the artist's work. To all who have read the preceding volumes of this edition, what has just been said is familiar enough. The subject, therefore, has been only thus briefly recalled. In the present play, owing to its plot, but little necessity exists for any unusual treatment of dramatic time. Like other Tales,' its march is direct and onward. And yet there is one regard wherein we feel the need of Shakespeare's thaumaturgy. A pronounced feature of the play is the sudden onset of the jealousy of Leontes. It cannot be overlooked. It strikes every reader. There is no gradual development of the passion, as in Othello; there is no growth; almost as swift as thought Leontes is at the height of frenzy. Whether this is intentional on Shakespeare's part, or carelessness, or because, as has been suggested by DEIGHTON, the novel of Greene, wherein the jealousy is of a gradual growth, was so familiar to Shakespeare that he imagined it was as familiar to his auditors, no one can ever know. But, after the attack of mania has once set in, I think we can detect an intention to make us lose sight of the electric flash with which it apparently began, and, apart from the memory of its utter groundlessness, which neither can, nor should, be obliterated, to make us glide insensibly into a belief that the jealousy is really the result of long observation by Leontes, who has been for many a day past watching the conduct of Hermione, and that her victory over the resolution of Polixenes to depart, was all that was needed to set the long smouldering passion in a blaze. It almost seems as though in this play Shakespeare had disdained to show us a gradual growth of jealousy as in Othello, but that, after imparting to its earliest manifestation a dramatic suddenness, he was conscious of his power to sway us at his will and to make us accept this jealousy of Leontes as really gradual and natural, that is, as natural as such an unnatural frenzy can be made. That Shakespeare did not wholly over-rate his power is found in the fact that some critics have gone so far as to suppose that Hermione had been actually imprudent in her behaviour toward Polixenes. The first note transferring the present into the past is struck in an Aside, where Leontes says, in his conversation with Camillo, "'tis far gone when I shall gust it 'last! Be it that this is merely Leontes's imagination, it conveys, nevertheless, an impression of a gradual growth of gossip, busy for many a day throughout the palace and even abroad, concerning acts of the Queen in the past, which Leontes is the last to notice. The impression may be but a mere vanishing touch, yet it is felt and leaves a mark. Again, Leontes speaks in wrath of seeing a game played home,' and that rumour cannot be mute,' and then, his frenzy at white heat, he unfolds picture after picture which his memory supplies of scenes, which, grossly misinterpreted as we know they must be, we have to accept as drawn from actions which happened before the opening of the play : Is whispering nothing? Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses? Of laughter, with a sigh ?—a note infallible Of breaking honesty,-horsing foot on foot? Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift? It may be urged that it is only now, in the retrospect, that Leontes thus puts a wicked interpretation on the innocent actions of Hermione. How do we know? The mere fact that he recalls them, shows that they must have made some impression on him at the time. We all know that they are the wild distortions of madness, but when we listen to the play, these allusions serve the purpose of lessening the suddenness of the madman's jealousy. Although we do not actually see the growth of his jealousy, what might have been its stages are made to pass in review before us. Herein lies the only need that I can detect, in this play, of any art in the management of dramatic time, and herein also the only evidences of it. DEIGHTON has cited nearly all of these passages as indications that the growth of Leontes's jealousy had been really gradual. I have merely added their effect in regard to the dramatic time. Mr P. A. DANIEL has made a ‘Time-Analysis' of this Play (New Shakspere Soc. Trans., 1877-79, p. 177) whereof the synopsis is as follows: According to this computation the 'Play comprises eight days represented on the 'stage, with intervals.' I am inclined to think that there are but seven days, and that Mr Daniel has not sufficiently extended the first day. Mr Daniel says in effect : DAY 1. Act I, sc. i. Camillo and Archidamus meet and converse. 66 Act I, sc. ii. Polixenes yields to Hermione's request to prolong his visit. 'Leontes, smitten with jealousy, engages Camillo to poison Polixenes. Camillo reveals 'the plot to Polixenes, and together they fly from Sicilia that same night, 'DAY 2. Act II, sc. i. Leontes orders Hermione to be imprisoned pending the ' return of Cleomenes and Dion, whom he has dispatched to Delphos. 'I am not sure that a separate day should be given to this scene; but, on the whole, the proposed departure of Polixenes and Camillo on the night of the first 'day, and the mission since then, of Cleomenes and Dion to Delphos, make this 'division probable.' I believe the sequence of events to be rather as follows: While Leontes is unfolding his jealousy to Camillo, Polixenes and Hermione are walking in the garden; when they have finished their stroll, they separate; Hermione goes to her apartments, and Polixenes goes to his, but on the way meets, first, Leontes coming away from Camillo, and, next, Camillo himself, from whom he learns of the plot against his life. Camillo begs him to leave 'to-night,' supposing that some time would be consumed in getting the ships ready, but when Polixenes says that his ships are even then ready and had been so for two days, Camillo concludes by begging him to take the urgent hour,' that is, the hour that was even then pressing upon them. They accordingly fly at once with the utmost haste; one of the lords says afterward he never saw men scour 'so on their way, he eyed them even to their ships,' which he could not have done had it been in the dark night. In the meanwhile, Leontes, after parting from Camillo, and under the full sway of his fury, determines to have divine sanction for his procedure, and accordingly dispatches Cleomenes and Dion to Delphos; he then goes to Hermione's apartment, possibly to upbraid her and to tell her of his appeal to the God. On the threshold he is told of the flight of Polixenes, and Camillo's treachery is disclosed to him; then follows Hermione's imprisonment as an accomplice in high treason, and the day, on which the play opens, ends. Clearly the whole action thus far has consumed not more than four or five hours. It would be monstrous to suppose that after his maniacal outburst in his interview with Camillo, Leontes could have seen Hermione, or have talked with her in the old familiar way, or that he could have disguised that hatred which he could not refrain from displaying to Polixenes, although he had just promised Camillo that he would seem friendly to him. He afterward says that he could find no rest night or day,--and to suppose that on the first night of the out-break of his madness he could rest without seeking Hermione, and revealing to her his fury at her infidelity is to show little knowledge, I fear, of human nature. And yet this supposition must be made if we are to assume that Polixenes fled that night and that Leontes knew nothing of the flight till the next day, when he was about to visit Hermione's apartments. Mr Daniel himself doubts, as we have seen, his correctness in assigning two days to this much of the action. He was misled, I think, by Camillo's 'to-night,' and did not give sufficient weight to 'the urgent hour.' With the exception, then, of changing eight days' to seven, all the rest of his computation appears to be right. MUSIC THERE have been in this Play six Songs set to music :— Of these, the music of only two is of an earlier date than the middle of the last century. These two are: 'Jog-on, jog-on, the footpath way,' and 'Lawn, as white as 'driven snow.' For the names of the composers of the music for the remaining six, the student is referred to 'A List of All the Songs & Passages in Shakspere which 'have been set to Music,' published by the New Sh. Soc. London, 1884. Of the two just mentioned, the tune of 'Jog-on, jog-on,' etc. is the earlier; it is found, according to CHAPPELL (p. 211), in' The Dancing Master, from 1650 to 1698, called Jog on, and also in Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book under the name of Hanskin.' (Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book has a misleading title. It is a manuscript in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, and Chappell says (p. xiv), ‘can never have been the 'property of Queen Elizabeth. It is written throughout in one handwriting, and in that writing are dates 1603, 1605, and 1612.') Another name for the tune is Sir Francis Drake, or Eighty-eight. The words of the Song are in The Antidote against Melancholy, 1661; the first stanza is the same as that which Autolycus sings; the last is as follows:-' Cast care ' away, let sorrow cease, A fig for melancholy; Let's laugh and sing, or, if you please, 'We'll frolic with sweet Dolly.' Both KNIGHT and CHAPPELL give the musical notation, but the simplest arrangement appears to be that in Shakespeare and Music, by Edw. W. NAYLOR, London, 1896, p. 192, as follows: Jog on, jog on, the foot - path way, And merrily hent the stile mer - - ry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile - a. The music for this is found The second song is 'Lawn, as white as driven snow.' in WILSON'S Cheerfull Ayres or Ballads, Oxford, 1660. son himself, and although the date is somewhat late, yet the fact that there is ground for believing that John Wilson as a boy was the identical 'Jack Wilson' who, as Bal |