The Evolution of States Part 46

It is pure supererogation, then, to argue that "everything had been done by the first Stuart king to cool down patriotism, and to diminish the self-respect and pride of Englishmen; while at the same time, by his insolent hitherto unheard-of (?) divine-right pretensions, he alarmed them for their political liberties, and by his ecclesiastical policy he exasperated theological controversy; thus contriving, both in politics and in religion, to destroy unity and foster party spirit to an extent which had been unknown for nearly half-a-century. The condition of things," adds Mr. Macaulay, "was unfavourable to everything national, and above all things to the national drama, which became rather the amus.e.m.e.nt of the idle than the embodiment of a popular enthusiasm." Need it be pointed out that all of Shakespeare's greatest work, after _Hamlet_, which was anything but "national," was produced after the accession of James? What had popular enthusiasm to do with _Oth.e.l.lo_, _Macbeth_, _Lear_, _Coriola.n.u.s_, _Antony and Cleopatra_, _The Tempest_, and _The Winter's Tale_?

The really explanatory factors are (1) the economic, (2) the trend of popular culture. Shakespeare alone of the dramatists of his day made anything like a good income; and he did so in virtue of being an actor and a prudent partner in the proprietors.h.i.+p of his theatre. Kyd, Greene, and Peele all died in misery; and Marlowe must have lived his short life from hand to mouth. Jonson subsisted chiefly by his masques and by the gifts of patrons, and by his own avowal was always poor. Chapman can have fared no better. The concurrence of the abnormal genius of Shakespeare with his gift of commercial management is one of the rarest things in literary history: take that away, and the problem of the "decadence" is seen to be merely part of the statement of the "rise."

When men of superior power, taught by the past, ceased to defy poverty by writing for the theatre--and even the vogue of Fletcher and Ma.s.singer represented no solid monetary success--plays could less than ever appeal to the "serious" and sectarian sections of the London public. Popular culture ran on the sterile lines of pietism, Puritanism, and the strifes engendered between these and sacerdotalism. All this had begun long before James, though he may have promoted the evolution. Literary art perforce turned to other forms. A successful national war could no more have regenerated the drama than the wars of Henry V could generate it.

There was plenty of "national enthusiasm" later, in the periods of Marlborough and Chatham: there was no great drama; and the new fiction had as little to do with patriotism as had Shakespeare's comedies and tragedies. Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_ was not inspired by his politics.

It is well to recognise, finally, that in the nature of things aesthetic, every artistic convention must in time be "played out," the law of variation involving deviations or recoils. Blank-verse drama is a specially limited convention, which only great genius can vitalise. Even in this connection, however, there is danger in _a priori_ theorising.

Mr. Macaulay quotes from Schlegel the generalisation that "in the commencement of a degeneracy in the dramatic art, the spectators first lose the capability of judging of a play as a whole"; hence "the harmony of the composition, and the due proportion between all the various parts is apt to be neglected, and the flagging interest is stimulated by scenes of horror or strange and startling incidents." The implication is that the Jacobean drama degenerated in this way. Again the facts are opposed to the thesis. If we are to believe Shakespeare and Jonson and Beaumont, the audiences never appreciated plays as wholes. Scenes of "comic relief," utterly alien to the action, come in as early as _Locrine_. Scenes of physical and moral horror, again, abound in the pre-Shakespearean drama: in _The Spanish Tragedy_ and _Arden of Feversham_, in _David and Bethsabe_, in _t.i.tus Andronicus_ (a pre-Shakespearean atrocity), in _Selimus_ and _Tancred and Gismunda_, and _Alphonsus Emperor of Germany_ (a Greene-Peele play wrongly ascribed to Chapman), they are multiplied _ad nauseam_. Rapes, a.s.sa.s.sinations, incest, tearing-out of eyes and cutting-off of hands, the kissing of a husband's excised heart by his wife, the unwitting eating of her children's flesh by a mother, the das.h.i.+ng out of a child's brains by its grandfather--such are among the flowers of the Elizabethan time. On Schlegel's theory, there was degeneration before there was success.

Webster's "horrors" do not seem to have won him great vogue; and Ford's neurotic products had no great popularity. Doubtless weak performers tend to resort to violent devices; but they did so before Shakespeare; and Shakespeare did not stick at trifles in _Lear_ and _Oth.e.l.lo_.

Decadence in art-forms, in short, is to be studied like other forms of decadence, in the light of the totality of conditions; and is not to be explained in terms of itself. Mr. Macaulay's thesis as a whole might be reb.u.t.ted by simply citing the fact that the florescence of Spanish drama at the hands of Lope de Vega and Calderon occurred in a period of political decline, when "patriotic enthusiasm" had nothing to live upon.

Vega began play-writing just after the defeat of the Armada; and his _Dragontea_, written in exultation over the death of Drake, is not a memorable performance. Velasquez, like Calderon, flourished under Philip IV, in a time of national depression and defeat.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 987: "The distinctive characteristics of the Saxon race--talents for agriculture, navigation, and commerce" (T. Colley Grattan, _The Netherlands_, 1830, p. 2).]

[Footnote 988: A.L. Smith, in _Social England_, i, 201, 202. When Alfred built s.h.i.+ps he had to get "Frisian pirates" to man them. It was clearly the new agricultural facilities of England that turned the original pirates into thorough landsmen. Cp. Dr. Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, 3rd ed. 1896, App. E. pp. 640, 641.]

[Footnote 989: H. Hall, in _Social England_, i, 464. Cp. ii, 101; Prof.

Ashley, _Introduction to English Economic History_, 1888-93, i, 111; Hallam, _Middle Ages_, 11th ed. iii, 327; Schanz, _Englische Handelspolitik_, 1889, i, 1. When the Jews were expelled by Edward I, Lombards were installed in their place. Later, as we shall see, the Hansards seem to have tutored natives up to the point of undertaking their own commerce.]

[Footnote 990: Cp. A.L. Smith, as cited, p. 203.]

[Footnote 991: Seebohm, _The English Village Community_, 3rd ed. 1884, pref. p. ix. Cp. Prof. Ashley, _Introduction to English Economic History_, i, 13-16.]

[Footnote 992: Prof. Maitland, the most circ.u.mspect opponent of the "serf" view, did not consider this when he asked (_Domesday Book and Beyond_, ed. 1907, p. 222) how either the Saxon victors could in the ma.s.s have sunk to serfdom or the conquered Britons, whose language had disappeared, could be so numerous as to const.i.tute the ma.s.s of the population.]

[Footnote 993: That the serf or villein was not necessarily an abject slave is noted by Kemble (_Saxons in England_, as cited, i, 213) and Stubbs (_Const. Hist._ 4th ed. i, 466).]

[Footnote 994: Maitland, _Domesday Book_, pp. 43, 46.]

[Footnote 995: This seems a more probable etymology than the derivation by spelling from _Knabe_.]

[Footnote 996: Cp. the Rev. G. Hill, _Some Consequences of the Norman Conquest_, 1904, pp. 60-61.]

[Footnote 997: Green, _History_ (the longer), 1885, i, 79.]

[Footnote 998: Thierry, _Histoire de la Conquete de l'Angleterre_, edit.

9e, 1851, i, 152-55; Duruy, _Hist. de France_, ed. 1880, i, 289.]

[Footnote 999: Maitland, _Domesday Book and Beyond_, 1907, pp. 3-5.]

[Footnote 1000: Cp. Buckle, 3-vol. ed. ii, 116, 1-vol. ed. p. 351; Stubbs, _Const. Hist._ i, 280; Sharon Turner, _History of England during the Middle Ages_, 2nd ed. i, 213. "The princes who lived upon the worst terms with their barons seem accordingly to have been the most liberal in grants ... to their burghs." Adam Smith, _Wealth of Nations_, bk.

iii, ch. iii.]

[Footnote 1001: The Conqueror himself not only took pains to protect and attach native freemen who accepted his rule, but sought to retain their laws and usages. Cp. Stubbs, i, 281, 290, 298. The statement that he aimed specially at the manumission of serfs (Sharon Turner, as last cited, i, 135, 136) proceeds on a fabricated charter. That, however, is not later than Henry I.]

[Footnote 1002: Cp. Milman, _Latin Christianity_, bk. xiv, ch. i.]

[Footnote 1003: _E.g._ the rivalries of mendicant friars and secular priests and monks, and of the different orders of monks and friars with each other. Cp. Milman, _Latin Christianity_, 4th ed. ix, 145, 146, 155, 156; Sharon Turner, _History of England during the Middle Ages_, iii, 123-26, 137, etc. The strifes between popes and prelates are innumerable, in all countries.]

[Footnote 1004: As to this see Dr. Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, 3rd ed. 1896, Appendix E. Cp. Green, _Short History_, ch. ii, -- 6, p. 88.]

[Footnote 1005: As to which see Earle, _Philology of the English Tongue_, 3rd ed. pp. 54-66.]

[Footnote 1006: This is explicitly admitted by Buckle (3-vol. ed. ii, 118; 1-vol. ed. p. 352), though he does not thereafter speak consistently on the subject.]

[Footnote 1007: Cp. Buckle, as last cited; Green. _History_ (the larger), 1885, i. 300.]

[Footnote 1008: Stubbs, iii, 606.]

[Footnote 1009: Karl Hegel notes (_Stadte und Gilden der germanischen Volker im Mittelalter_, pp. 33-34) that the Anglo-Saxon gilds seem to have had no connection with towns or communes, and that their societies might serve as a type for any cla.s.s-a.s.sociation.]

[Footnote 1010: Cp. Green, _Short History_, ch. iv, -- 4, pp. 192, 193; ch. vi, -- 3, p. 285; Prof. Ashley, _Introd. to English Economic History_, 1888-93, i, 71, 75, 85, 87, 89; ii, 12, 14, 19, 49. Prof.

Ashley notes a great change for the better in the fifteenth century (work cited, ii, 6), and a further advance in the sixteenth (ii, 42).]

[Footnote 1011: Cp. J.H. Round, _The Commune of London_, 1899, p. 224.]

[Footnote 1012: "After Crecy and Calais, Edward felt himself strong enough to disregard the Commons.... His power was for the most part great or small, as his foreign policy was successful or disastrous"

(Pearson, _English History in the Fourteenth Century_, pp. 224, 225).

See also Stubbs, iii, 608; and compare the case of Henry V.]

[Footnote 1013: Cp. Prof. Ashley, i, 88.]

[Footnote 1014: As to Flemish influence on early English progress, see Prof. Thorold Rogers, _Industrial and Commercial History of England_, 1892, pp. 10, 11, 301-303.]

[Footnote 1015: Hallam. _Middle Ages_, iii. 321, 322.]

[Footnote 1016: Gardiner, _Student's History of England_, p. 69; Gneist, as cited above, p. 376. Cp. Gardiner's _Introduction to the Study of English History_, p. 91: "Even the House of Commons, which was pus.h.i.+ng its way to a share of power, was comparatively an aristocratic body. The labouring population in town and country had no share in its exaltation.

Even the citizens, the merchants and tradesmen of the towns, looked down upon those beneath them without trust or affection." Magna Carta itself was a protection only for "freemen."]

[Footnote 1017: Cp. Gibbins. _Industrial History of England_, pp. 36, 37; Pearson, _History of England during the Early and Middle Ages_, ii, 378.]

[Footnote 1018: See Pearson's _English History in the Fourteenth Century_, pp. 23, 228, 253, etc.; cp. p. 225. In the thirteenth century Frederick II had enfranchised all the serfs on his own domains (Milman, _Latin Christianity_, vi, 153); and a similar policy had become general in the Italian cities. Louis VI and Louis VII of France had even enfranchised many of their serfs in the twelfth century, and Louis X carried out the policy in 1315. Cp. Duruy, _Hist. de France_, i, 291, _note_. England in these matters was not forward, but backward.]

[Footnote 1019: Froissart, liv. ii, ch. 106, ed. Buchon, 1837. The southern counties, however, were perhaps then as now less democratic, less "free," than the northern.]

[Footnote 1020: Compare Mackintosh's rhetoric as to Magna Carta const.i.tuting "the immortal claim of England on the esteem of mankind"

(_History of England_, 1830, i, 222), and as to Simon de Montfort, whom he credits with inventing the idea of representation in Parliament for cities (p. 238).]

[Footnote 1021: Duruy, _Hist. de France_, i, 289.]

[Footnote 1022: Cp. Guizot, _Essais sur l'histoire de France_, 7e edit.

p. 322.]

[Footnote 1023: This had, however, been employed as early as 1246.]

[Footnote 1024: Cp. Pearson, as last cited, p. 8.]