tide of his own inspiration, which takes the same course with the interests of the nation. For it is the reward of the intimate sympathy which exists. between him and his countrymen, that he goes to work, his personal genius fortified and enlarged by the popular enthusiasms, patriotic or cosmopolitan. And nothing can withstand the speed and volume of the current. There is a great contrast between the broad free sweep of his Histories, English or Roman, that lift us from our feet and carry us away, and the little artificial channels of the antiquarian dramas, on the margin of which we stand at ease to criticise the purity of the distilled water. Yet none the less he is in a sense more obedient to his authorities than any writer of the antiquarian school. Just because, while desiring to give the truth as he knows it, he is careless to examine the accuracy or estimate the value of the documents he consults; and just because, while determined to give a faithful narrative, he spares himself all labour of comparison and research and takes a statement of Holinshed or Plutarch as guaranteeing itself, he is far more in the hands of the guide he follows than a later dramatist would be. He takes the text of his author, and often he has not more than one: he accepts it implicitly and will not willingly distort it: he reads it in the light of his own insight and the spirit of the age, and tries to recreate the agents and the story from the more or less adequate hints that he finds. Now, proceeding in this way it is clear that while in every case Shakespeare's indebtedness to his historical sources must be great, it will vary greatly in quality and degree according to the material delivered to him. The situations may be more or less dramatic, the narrative more or less firmly conceived. And among his sources Plutarch occupies quite an exceptional place. From no one else has he 'conveyed' so much, and no one else has he altered so little. And the reason is, that save Chaucer and Homer, on whom he drew for Troilus and Cressida, but from whom he could assimilate little that suited his own different ideas, no other writer contained so much that was of final and permanent excellence. To put it shortly, in Plutarch's Lives Shakespeare for the first and almost the only time was rehandling the masterpieces of a genius who stood at the summit of his art. It was not so in the English Histories. One does not like to say a word in disparagement of the Elizabethan chronicles, especially Holinshed's, on which the maturer plays are based. They are good reading and deserve to be read independently of the dramatist's use of them. But they are not works of phenomenal ability, and they betray the infancy of historical writing, not only in scientific method, which in the present connection would hardly matter, but in narrative art as well. Cowley in his Chronicle, i.e. the imaginary record of his love affairs, breaks off with a simile and jest at their expense. If, he says, I were to give the details, I more voluminous should grow- All change of weathers that befell) Their intention is good, and they often realise it so as to interest and impress, but the introduction of such-like trifles as Cowley mentions, without much relevance or significance, may give us the measure of their technical skill. Again, though in the second and third part of Henry VI. Shakespeare may have been dealing with the work of Marlowe, we have to remember, first, that his originals were probably composite pieces not by Marlowe alone, and, further, that even Marlowe could not altogether escape the disabilities of a pioneer. In Plutarch, however, Shakespeare levied toll on no petty vassal like the compilers of the Chronicles, or innovating conqueror like the author of Tamburlaine, but on the king by right divine of a long-established realm And the result is that he appropriates more, and that more of greater value, than from any other tributary. CHAPTER III ANCESTRY OF SHAKESPEARE'S ROMAN PLAYS I. PLUTARCH1 PLUTARCH, born at Chaeronea in Boeotia, about 45 or 50 A.D., flourished in the last quarter of the first · and the earliest quarter of the second century. He came of good stock, which he is not reluctant to talk about. Indeed, his habit of introducing or quoting his father, his grandfather, and even his great grandfather, gives us glimpses of a home in which the prescribed pieties of family life were warmly cherished; and some of the references imply an atmosphere of simplicity, urbanity, and culture. The lad was sent to Athens to complete his education under Ammonius, an eminent philosopher of that generation, though in Carlyle's phrase, 'now dim to us,' who also took part in what little administrative work was still intrusted to provincials, and more than once held the distinguished position of strategos. Thus, as in childhood Plutarch was trained in the best domestic traditions of elder Greece, so now he had before his eyes an example of such active citizenship as survived in the changed condition of things. 1 See Plutarch's works passim, especially North's version of the Lives reprinted in the Tudor Translations, and the Morals translated by Philemon Holland (1603). See also Archbishop Trench's Lectures on Plutarch. The same spirit of reverence for the past presided over his routine of study. His works afterwards show a wide familiarity with the earlier literature and philosophy of his country, and the foundations of this must have been laid in his student days. It was still in accordance with accepted precedents and his own reminiscent tastes, that when he set out on his travels, he should first, as so many of his predecessors were reported to have done, betake himself to the storied land of Egypt. We know that this must have been after 66 A.D., for in that year, when Nero made his progress through Greece, Plutarch tells us that he was still the pupil of Ammonius. We know, further, that he must have visited Alexandria, for he mentions that in his grandfather's opinion his father gave too large a banquet to celebrate their homecoming from that city. But he does not inform us how much of Egypt he saw, or how long was his stay, or in what way he employed himself. It is only a probable conjecture at most that his treatise on Isis and Osiris may be one of the fruits of this expedition. Of another and later journey that took him to Italy, there is more to be said. Plutarch at an early age, whether before or after the Egyptian tour, had already been employed in public affairs. He tells us : I remember my selfe, that when I was but of yoong yeres I was sent with another in embassage to the Proconsul: and in that my companion staid about I wot not what behind, I went alone and did that which we had in commission to do together. After my returne when I was to give an account unto the State, and to report the effect of my charge and message back again, my father arose, and taking me apart, willed me in no wise to speak in the singular number and say, I departed or went, but, We departed; item not I said (or quoth I) but We said; and in the whole narration of the rest to joine alwaies my companion as if he had been associated and at one hand with me in that which I did alone.1 1 Instructions for them, etc. |