with passages of majestic eloquence and brilliant poetry, while the comic (1598 or 1599), As You Like It (1599 or 1600), and Twelfth Night (1600). Of these, Much Ado about Nothing is the least delightful, shadowed by the villainy of Don John and the unchivalrous behaviour of Claudio; but Benedick, Beatrice, and Dogberry make amends. As You Like It is the most thoroughly delightful play that Shakespeare ever wrote, and Rosalind perhaps deserves the palm among all his female creations. The Forest of Arden is as purely an ideal world as that of the Midsummer Night's Dream or The Tempest, and owes nothing of its ideality to the supernatural. It is perhaps the most remarkable instance that poetry affords of an ideal creation out of purely human elements. If Twelfth Night is less enchanting, it is merely because the Illyrian city cannot have the romantic charm of the forest, nor can Viola reproduce the unique flavour of Rosalind, nor can she have a foil Poetical and Shakespeare the century in Celia. But if less exceptional, the character is not less exquisite, and touches the feelings more deeply; the subordinate personages are even more humorous; and the action is balanced with the nicest skill on the limits. between gay and grave. It is remarkable that among the materials for his plot Shakespeare takes up the Spanish romance from which he had derived The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and uses the part which he had then rejected. The cheerful character of Shakespeare's dramatic work towards the close at the close of of the century was promoted not merely by his restitution to Stratford, but by the general prosperity of his affairs. In 1599 the brothers Burbage built the Globe Theatre in Bankside, and allotted shares in the receipts to some of the more distinguished performers, among whom Shakespeare is mentioned. The amount he would probably receive, including his salary as actor, has been estimated at £500 in the money of the period, out of which he would have to contribute his share towards the expenses of the theatre. Remuneration for his dramatic writings and extra emoluments from performances at Court and at private mansions would increase his income, which may be fairly estimated at £600 a year. His was one of the natures with which prosperity agrees, and we may see thankfulness and satisfaction reflected in his work. This complacency, nevertheless, was mainly the creation of outward circumstances. It was not yet based upon philosophy allied to experience, and resulting in that large, liberal, tolerant view of life of which his latest writings show him in possession. Ere this could be his, he had yet, to all appearance, to traverse a tempestuous inward crisis. Meanwhile the century, for him, closed in peace. CHAPTER VI SHAKESPEARE-(continued) If the sixteenth century had closed brightly for Shakespeare, the seventeenth Shakespeare began in cloud and storm. His own position may not have been affected, of seventeenth at beginning but he must have suffered deeply with his patron and his friend. We have century seen him celebrating Essex's Irish expedition in Henry V., and promising that the hero should return, "bearing rebellion broached upon his sword." Things had turned out far otherwise. Falling from one disaster to another, Essex, in February 1601, was goaded into the mad attempt at revolution which brought him to the scaffold, and his ally Southampton, Shakespeare's friend and Mæcenas, to the Tower. In the same month, Pembroke, the subject, as we have contended, of Shakespeare's Sonnets, incurred, like Raleigh before him, the Queen's displeasure by an intrigue with a maid of honour. He was imprisoned and banished the Court. It has already been remarked that the month of his imprisonment corresponds with the month of April during which Shakespeare laments his severance from his friend. We are nevertheless not disposed to connect the circumstances, as Shakespeare seems to write as one who has himself been absent in the country. The date of the absence may with probability be conjectured from the first four lines of Sonnet XCVIII. : From you have I been absent in the spring, That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him. Saturn may be merely a poetical synonym for Time; but if, as is more probable, the planet Saturn is denoted, he certainly is not introduced at random. Mr. George Wyndham has most ingeniously surmised a reference to the peculiar brilliancy of Saturn when in opposition to the sun, and thus at his greatest possible distance. The sun in April is in Aries and Taurus, and to be in opposition to him Saturn must be in Libra or Scorpio, as actually was the case at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century. This acute observation may be reinforced by another derived from the kindred study of astrology. Libra is astrologically the exaltation of Saturn, one of the signs in which he is supposed to be most potent. He may therefore with great propriety be said to "laugh and leap" in it. He was in Libra and opposed to the sun in the April of 1599 and 1600. The latter date would agree best with the general chronological scheme of the Sonnets. "Julius Casar" It is an interesting speculation whether the conspiracy of Essex contributed to direct Shakespeare's attention to the conspiracy of Brutus as the subject of his next play. There can be little doubt that Julius Cæsar appeared in 1601, for it is alluded to in Weever's Mirror of Martyrs, published in that year, and it seems out of keeping with the plays of 1599-1600. Professor Dowden has pointed out its intellectual affinity to Hamlet, a drama of the succeeding year. In resorting to Plutarch for a subject, Shakespeare was merely repeating the procedure with the English chroniclers which had answered so well in his English historical plays, but he had now to deal with material already sifted by a masterly hand. It was not the especial business of the English chroniclers to record noble actions: they relate the history of the times with fidelity, and take things noble or ignoble as they come. But Plutarch's Lives are eclectic; his aim is to preserve what is really memorable in a strictly human point of view, and in so doing he gives it so admirable a form that Shakespeare himself cannot improve upon it. Many, therefore, of THE Tragicall Hiftorie of HAMLET Prince of Denmarke By William Shake-speare. the most striking traits and sayings in Julius Cæsar are taken directly from his biographies of Cæsar and Brutus. Referring back from the poet to the biographer, we find continually how what has most impressed and charmed us belongs to Plutarch. An inferior writer would have attempted to heighten or refine upon his original. Shakespeare never alters what he knows cannot be improved. Where, however, he sees his opportunity, he fairly carries Plutarch away in his talons. The finest scenes in the play, scenes which Shakespeare himself never surpassedthe oratory and tumult at the funeral of Cæsar and the dispute between Brutus and Cassius-are developed from the merest hints. With exquisite judgment, these grand displays of eloquence and passion are reserved for the part of the play that requires them. The first half, full of incident and character, needs no embellishment; but after Cæsar's death the interest would flag but for these potent reinforcements. In another respect Shakespeare is very dependent upon Plutarch-the delineation of character. He has not to do here with rude. faint outlines, like the traditional Macbeth or the traditional Lear, but with portraits painted after authentic history by the hand of a master. These As it hath beene diuerfe times acted by his Highneffe feruants in the Cittie of London: as alfo in the two Vniuerfities of Cambridge and Oxford,and elfe-where VOL. II At London printed for N.L. and Iohn Trundell. 1603. Title page of the First Quarto of "Hamlet" P |