Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher Part 33

I cannot but think that in a country conquered by a n.o.bler race than the natives, and in which the latter became villeins and bondsmen, this custom, _lex merchetae_, may have been introduced for wise purposes,-as of improving the breed, lessening the antipathy of different races, and producing a new bond of relations.h.i.+p between the lord and the tenant, who, as the eldest born, would at least have a chance of being, and a probability of being thought, the lord's child. In the West Indies it cannot have these effects, because the mulatto is marked by nature different from the father, and because there is no bond, no law, no custom, but of mere debauchery.-1815.

Act i. sc. 1. Rutilio's speech:-

"Yet if you play not fair play," &c.

Evidently to be transposed, and read thus:-

"Yet if you play not fair, above-board too, I'll tell you what- I've a foolish engine here:-I say no more- But if your Honour's guts are not enchanted."

Licentious as the comic metre of B. and F. is,-a far more lawless, and yet far less happy, imitation of the rhythm of animated talk in real life than Ma.s.singer's-still it is made worse than it really is by ignorance of the halves, thirds, and two-thirds of a line which B. and F. adopted from the Italian and Spanish dramatists. Thus, in Rutilio's speech:-

"Though I confess Any man would desire to have her, and by any means," &c.

Correct the whole pa.s.sage,-

"Though I confess Any man would Desire to have her, and by any means, At any rate too, yet this common hangman That hath whipt off a thousand maids heads already- That he should glean the harvest, sticks in my stomach!"

In all comic metres the gulping of short syllables, and the abbreviation of syllables ordinarily long by the rapid p.r.o.nunciation of eagerness and vehemence, are not so much a license as a law,-a faithful copy of nature, and let them be read characteristically, the times will be found nearly equal. Thus, the three words marked above make a _choriambus_ -- u u, or perhaps a _paeon primus_ - u u u; a dactyl, by virtue of comic rapidity, being only equal to an iambus when distinctly p.r.o.nounced. I have no doubt that all B. and F.'s works might be safely corrected by attention to this rule, and that the editor is ent.i.tled to transpositions of all kinds, and to not a few omissions. For the rule of the metre once lost-what was to restrain the actors from interpolation?

"The Elder Brother."

Act i. sc. 2. Charles's speech:-

... "For what concerns tillage, Who better can deliver it than Virgil In his Georgicks? and to cure your herds, His Bucolicks is a master-piece."

Fletcher was too good a scholar to fall into so gross a blunder, as Messrs. Sympson and Colman suppose. I read the pa.s.sage thus:-

... "For what concerns tillage, Who better can deliver it than Virgil, In his Georgicks, _or_ to cure your herds (His Bucolicks are a master-piece); but when," &c.

Jealous of Virgil's honour, he is afraid lest, by referring to the _Georgics_ alone, he might be understood as undervaluing the preceding work. "Not that I do not admire the _Bucolics_ too, in their way.-But when," &c.

Act iii. sc. 3. Charles's speech:-

... "She has a face looks like a _story_; The _story_ of the heavens looks very like her."

Seward reads "glory;" and Theobald quotes from Philaster:-

"That reads the story of a woman's face."

I can make sense of this pa.s.sage as little as Mr. Seward;-the pa.s.sage from Philaster is nothing to the purpose. Instead of "a story," I have sometimes thought of proposing "Astraea."

_Ib._ Angellina's speech:-

... "You're old and dim, Sir, And the shadow of the earth eclips'd your judgment."

Inappropriate to Angellina, but one of the finest lines in our language.

Act iv. sc. 3. Charles's speech:-

"And lets the serious part of life run by As thin neglected sand, whiteness of name.

You must be mine," &c.

Seward's note, and reading:-

... "Whiteness of name, You must be mine!"

Nonsense! "Whiteness of name" is in apposition to "the serious part of life," and means a deservedly pure reputation. The following line-"You _must_ be mine!" means-"Though I do not enjoy you to-day, I shall hereafter, and without reproach."

"The Spanish Curate."

Act iv. sc. 7. Amaranta's speech:-

"And still I push'd him on, as he had been _coming_."

Perhaps the true word is "conning,"-that is, learning, or reading, and therefore inattentive.

"Wit Without Money."

Act i. Valentine's speech:-

"One without substance," &c.

The present text, and that proposed by Seward, are equally vile. I have endeavoured to make the lines sense, though the whole is, I suspect, incurable except by bold conjectural reformation. I would read thus:-

"One without substance of herself, that's woman; Without the pleasure of her life, that's wanton; Tho' she be young, forgetting it; tho' fair, Making her gla.s.s the eyes of honest men, Not her own admiration."

"That's wanton," or, "that is to say, wantonness."

Act ii. Valentine's speech:-

"Of half-a crown a week for pins and puppets."

"As there is a syllable wanting in the measure here."-Seward.