Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher Part 32

"_Strat._ As well as masque can be," &c.-

and all that follows to "who is return'd"-is plainly blank verse, and falls easily into it.

_Ib._ Speech of Melantius:-

"These soft and silken wars are not for me: The music must be shrill, and all confus'd, That stirs my blood; and then I dance with arms."

What strange self-trumpeters and tongue-bullies all the brave soldiers of Beaumont and Fletcher are! Yet I am inclined to think it was the fas.h.i.+on of the age from the Soldier's speech in the Counter Scuffle; and deeper than the fas.h.i.+on B. and F. did not fas.h.i.+on.

_Ib._ Speech of Lysippus:-

"Yes, but this lady Walks discontented, with her wat'ry eyes Bent on the earth," &c.

Opulent as Shakespeare was, and of his opulence prodigal, he yet would not have put this exquisite piece of poetry in the mouth of a no-character, or as addressed to a Melantius. I wish that B. and F. had written poems instead of tragedies.

_Ib._-

"_Mel._ I might run fiercely, not more hastily, Upon my foe."

Read

"I might run _more_ fiercel?, not more hastily."

_Ib._ Speech of Calianax:-

"Office! I would I could put it off! I am sure I sweat quite through my office!"

The syllable _off_ reminds the testy statesman of his robe, and he carries on the image.

_Ib._ Speech of Melantius:-

... "Would that blood, That sea of blood, that I have lost in fight," &c.

All B. and F.'s generals are pugilists or cudgel-fighters, that boast of their bottom and of the _claret_ they have shed.

_Ib._ The Masque;-Cinthia's speech:-

"But I will give a greater state and glory, And raise to time a _n.o.ble_ memory Of what these lovers are."

I suspect that "n.o.bler," p.r.o.nounced as "n.o.biler" - u -, was the poet's word, and that the accent is to be placed on the penultimate of "memory."

As to the pa.s.sage-

"Yet, while our reign lasts, let us stretch our power," &c.-

removed from the text of Cinthia's speech, by these foolish editors as unworthy of B. and F.-the first eight lines are not worse, and the last couplet incomparably better, than the stanza retained.

Act ii. Amintor's speech:-

"Oh, thou hast nam'd a word, that wipes away All thoughts revengeful! In that sacred name, 'The king,' there lies a terror."

It is worth noticing that of the three greatest tragedians, Ma.s.singer was a democrat, Beaumont and Fletcher the most servile _jure divino_ royalists, and Shakespeare a philosopher;-if aught personal, an aristocrat.

"A King And No King."

Act iv. Speech of Tigranes:-

"She, that forgat the greatness of her grief And miseries, that must follow such mad pa.s.sions, Endless and wild as women!" &c.

Seward's note and suggestion of "in."

It would be amusing to learn from some existing friend of Mr. Seward what he meant, or rather dreamed, in this note. It is certainly a difficult pa.s.sage, of which there are two solutions;-one, that the writer was somewhat more injudicious than usual;-the other, that he was very, very much more profound and Shakespearian than usual. Seward's emendation, at all events, is right and obvious. Were it a pa.s.sage of Shakespeare, I should not hesitate to interpret it as characteristic of Tigranes' state of mind, disliking the very virtues, and therefore half-consciously representing them as mere products of the violence of the s.e.x in general in all their whims, and yet forced to admire, and to feel and to express grat.i.tude for, the exertion in his own instance. The inconsistency of the pa.s.sage would be the consistency of the author. But this is above Beaumont and Fletcher.

"The Scornful Lady."

Act ii. Sir Roger's speech:-

"Did I for this consume my _quarters_ in meditations, vows, and woo'd her in heroical epistles? Did I expound the _Owl_, and undertake, with labour and expense, the recollection of those thousand pieces, consum'd in cellars and tobacco-shops, of that our honour'd Englishman, Nic. Broughton?" &c.

Strange, that neither Mr. Theobald nor Mr. Seward should have seen that this mock heroic speech is in full-mouthed blank verse! Had they seen this, they would have seen that "quarters" is a subst.i.tution of the players for "quires" or "squares," (that is) of paper:-

"Consume my quires in meditations, vows, And woo'd her in heroical epistles."

They ought, likewise, to have seen that the abbreviated "Ni. Br." of the text was properly "Mi. Dr."-and that Michael Drayton, not Nicholas Broughton, is here ridiculed for his poem _The Owl_ and his _Heroical Epistles_.

_Ib._ Speech of Younger Loveless:-

"Fill him some wine. Thou dost not see me mov'd," &c.

These Editors ought to have learnt, that scarce an instance occurs in B.

and F. of a long speech not in metre. This is plain staring blank verse.

"The Custom Of The Country."