• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 19429 0

Shakespear was an Actor, at a time when there were seven or eight Companies of Players in the Town together, who each of them did their utmost Endeavours to get the Audiences from the rest, and consequently that our Author was perpetually call'd upon, by those who had the Direction and Management of the Company to which he belong'd, for new Pieces which might be able to support them, and give them some Advantage over the rest. And 'tis easie to judge what Time he was Master of, between his laborious Employment of Acting and his continual Hurry of Writing. As for Friends, they whom in all likelihood Shakespear consulted most were two or three of his Fellow-Actors, because they had the Care of publishing his Works committed to them. Now they, as we are told by Ben Johnson in his Discoveries, were extremely pleas'd with their Friend for scarce ever making a Blot; and were very angry with Ben for saying he wish'd that he had made a thousand. The Misfortune of it is that Horace was perfectly of Ben's, mind.

——Vos, O

Pompilius sanguis, carmen reprehendite, quod non

Multa dies & multa litura coercuit, atque

Præsectum decies non castigavit ad unguem.

And so was my Lord Roscommon.

Poets lose half the Praise they should have got,

Could it be known what they discreetly blot.

These Friends then of Shakespear were not qualify'd to advise him. As for Ben Johnson, besides that Shakespear began to know him late, and that Ben was not the most communicative Person in the World of the Secrets of his Art, he seems to me to have had no right Notion of Tragedy. Nay, so far from it, that he who was indeed a very great Man, and who has writ Comedies, by which he has born away the Prize of Comedy both from Ancients and Moderns, and been an Honour to Great Britain; and who has done this without any Rules to guide him, except what his own incomparable Talent dictated to him; This extraordinary Man has err'd so grossly in Tragedy, of which there were not only stated Rules, but Rules which he himself had often read, and had even translated, that he has chosen two Subjects, which, according to those very Rules, were utterly incapable of exciting either Compassion or Terror for the principal Characters, which yet are the chief Passions that a Tragick Poet ought to endeavour to excite. So that Shakespear having neither had Time to correct, nor Friends to consult, must necessarily have frequently left such faults in his Writings, for the Correction of which either a great deal of Time or a judicious and a well-natur'd Friend is indispensably necessary.

Vir bonus & prudens versus reprehendet inertes,

Culpabit duros, incomptis allinet atrum

Transverso calamo signum, ambitiosa recidet

Ornamenta, parum claris lucem dare coget,

Arguet ambigue dictum, mutanda notabit.

There is more than one Example of every kind of these Faults in the Tragedies of Shakespear, and even in the Coriolanus. There are Lines that are utterly void of that celestial Fire of which Shakespear is sometimes Master in so great a Degree. And consequently there are Lines that are stiff and forc'd, and harsh and unmusical, tho' Shakespear had naturally an admirable Ear for the Numbers. But no Man ever was very musical who did not write with Fire, and no Man can always write with Fire, unless he is so far Master of his Time, as to expect those Hours when his Spirits are warm and volatile. Shakespear must therefore sometimes have Lines which are neither strong nor graceful: For who ever had Force or Grace that had not Spirit? There are in his Coriolanus, among a great many natural and admirable Beauties, three or four of those Ornaments which Horace would term ambitious; and which we in English are apt to call Fustian or Bombast. There are Lines in some Places which are very obscure, and whole Scenes which ought to be alter'd.

I have, Sir, employ'd some Time and Pains, and that little Judgment which I have acquir'd in these Matters by a long and a faithful reading both of Ancients and Moderns, in adding, retrenching, and altering several Things in the Coriolanus of Shakespear, but