The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [2717]
The reader will very easily apprehend that a character, which we might wholly disapprove of, considered as existing in human life, may yet be thrown on the stage into certain peculiar situations, and be compressed by external influences into such temporary appearances, as may render such character for a time highly acceptable and entertaining, and even more distinguished for qualities, which on this supposition would be accidents only, than another character really possessing those qualities, but which, under the pressure of the same situation and influences, would be distorted into a different form, or totally left in timidity and weakness. If therefore the character before us will admit of this kind of investigation, our Inquiry will not be without some dignity, considered as extending to the principles of human nature, and to the genius and arts of Him, who has best caught every various form of the human mind, and transmitted them with the greatest happiness and fidelity.
To return then to the vices of Falstaff.—We have frequently referred to them under the name of ill habits;—but perhaps the reader is not fully aware how very vicious he indeed is;—he is a robber, a glutton, a cheat, a drunkard, and a lyar; lascivious, vain, insolent, profligate, and profane:—A fine infusion this, and such as without very excellent cookery must have thrown into the dish a great deal too much of the fumet. It was a nice operation;—these vices were not only to be of a particular sort, but it was also necessary to guard them at both ends; on the one, from all appearance of malicious motive, and indeed from the manifestation of any ill principle whatever, which must have produced disgust,—a sensation no less opposite to laughter than is respect;—and, on the other, from the notice, or even apprehension, in the spectators, of pernicious effect; which produces grief and terror, and is the proper province of Tragedy alone.
Actions cannot with strict propriety be said to be either virtuous or vicious. These qualities, or attributes, belong to agents only; and are derived, even in respect to them, from intention alone. The abstracting of qualities, and considering them as independent of any subject, and the applying of them afterwards to actions independent of the agent, is a double operation which I do not pretend, thro' any part of it, to understand. All actions may most properly, in their own nature, I think, be called neutral; tho' in common discourse, and in writing where perfection is not requisite, we often term them vicious, transferring on these occasions the attributive from the agent to the action; and sometimes we call them evil, or of pernicious effect, by transferring, in like manner, the injuries incidentally arising from certain actions to the life, happiness, or interest of human beings, to the natural operation, whether moral or physical, of the actions themselves: One is a colour thrown on them by the intention, in which I think consists all moral turpitude, and the other by effect: If therefore a Dramatic writer will use certain managements to keep vicious intention as much as possible from our notice, and make us sensible that no evil effect follows, he may pass off actions of very vicious motive, without much ill impression, as mere incongruities, and the effect of humour only;—words these, which, as applied to human conduct, are employed, I believe, to cover a great deal of what may deserve much harder appellation.