M XV. MILTON'S FAMILIARITY WITH SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS. ILTON'S lines on "that admirable dramatic poet, Mr. William Shakespeare," and a few other of his allusions to him, are well known; but it may be doubted whether his appreciation of his great predecessor has yet been adequately recognized. We do not now propose to go into the general question, but only to take a particular instance, and to illustrate the keen receptive delight with which Milton when young studied the Midsummer Night's Dream. Other plays that might be especially named are Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, King Lear, and Macbeth; but we will confine ourselves now to the Midsummer Night's Dream, and among Milton's works to the famous pendants L'Allegro and Il Penseroso; and as we read the younger poet, listen for echoes of the elder. 1. The chief note of L'Allegro and its twin is, in fact, struck in the Midsummer Night's Dream, though amongst all the suggested "sources" of Milton's two poems, Shakespeare's play has, so far as we remember, scarcely been mentioned. says Theseus : "Go, Philostrate," "Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments; Turn melancholy forth to funerals ; The pale companion is not for our pomp." "Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies." 4. "Laughter holding both his sides." "And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh." 5. "Come and trip it as you go." and "And this ditty after me Sing and dance it trippingly." "Then, my queen, in silence sad 6. "Through the sweetbriar and the vine, 7. 66 Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, "How the hounds and horn Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn," in "the vaward of the day," when Theseus is out a hunting. 8. "Right against the eastern gate, When the great sun begins his state, "Even till the eastern gate, all fiery red, Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams, Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams." 9. Observe the fairy lore common to both poets. And Pomp, and Feast, and Revelry, "But I will wed thee in another key, With Pomp, with triumph, and with revelling." 66 12. Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eves by haunted stream." Is it impossible that this is a direct allusion to the Midsummer Night's Dream? Notice the immediately preceding words; and also the mention of Shakespeare in those that immediately follow. 13. "Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, Surely this way of speaking of the great dramatist is suggested by a vivid memory of a certain "wood near Athens," as also of Arden? 14. "That Orpheus self," &c. In the Midsummer Night's Dream we hear of "The Thracian singer." 15. To pass on to Il Penseroso :— and "How little you bested, Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys?" These antique fables, nor these fairy toys." 16. "The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train." 17. "Black-browed Night." 18. "While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke." "The triple Hecate's team." "Night's swift dragons." and 19. "When glowing embers through the room "Now the wasted brands do glow." "Through the house give glimmering light By the dead and drowsy fire." 20. "Not trickt and frounc't as she was wont With the Attic boy to hunt." "I with the morning's love have oft made sport." The meaning of Shakespeare's words has been disputed. How Milton took them is clear. 21. "Th' unseen Genius of the Wood." Is he not thinking of Oberon? the 'invisible' Oberon ?" Notice also these words as common to the poems before us: frolic (as an adj.), grain (of a dye), buskin❜d, virtuous (power-possessing potent), triumphs (shows), antique (= antic), &c. From other plays other illustrations might easily be drawn ; e.g. cf. "Day's garish eye" and "the garish sun " in Romeo and Juliet, &c. But, taking together all the coincidences we have mentioned, not laying stress on any single one, though indeed there are several that might well have stress laid upon them, surely we have already sufficient evidence to show with what worship and joy the young Milton sat at the feet of Shakespeare-sufficient evidence not that he consciously imitated or borrowed from him, or was in any sense untrue to his own originality, but that Shakespeare's works had become, so to speak, part of his mental garniture. THE XVI. RICHARD II. (From the Academy for Nov. 20, 1875.) HERE is, as is well known, great variety of opinion as to whether the play of Richard II., acted by the request of Sir Gilly Merrick the day before Essex's rising, was Shakespeare's or some other. The probabilities are, on the whole, perhaps in favour of its being Shakespeare's. As Shakespeare was intimately acquainted with Southampton, who was one of Essex's leading partisans, it is probable that those partisans would apply for any dramatic help they might want, or fancy they wanted, to the company to which Shakespeare belonged. Again, the omission of the Deposition Scene from the quartos of 1597 and 1598, though there can be little doubt it was then written, cannot but be regarded as significant of the use to which that scene might be turned. The publisher of those quartos evidently saw in it something that might be construed into a sense unfavourable to the Queen, and so welcome to her enemies. Nor, I think, can the fact of the play's being called an old play, and one that it would not pay to act, be said to counterweigh these probabilities. Others, however, and critics of judgment, may decide for themselves differently. But what I wish now to do is to recall attention to a piece of evidence brought forward years ago, but which seems to have been oddly overlooked or ignored by some recent editors-a piece of evidence which greatly increases the probability that the play was really Shakespeare's. |