A History of English Poetry

nature by ordering the execution of Claudio, so that he may not appear to the world to have been false to the strict requirements of justice. The scene representing the tortuous, indirect, and insinuating approaches, by which Angelo seeks to disguise from Isabella the real character of his proposal, till her virgin innocence and purity force him to speak plainly, is perhaps unequalled in dramatic poetry; and if the action could have been maintained throughout at this level, Measure for Measure might have been ranked as the greatest of Shakespeare's plays.

But there is a fatal weakness in the dénouement. is true that, in point of mere dramatic art, Shakespeare has never shown finer skill than in applying the plot of All's Well that Ends Well to unravel the complicated situation, thereby getting rid of some of the moral improbability of the conclusion to the story as told by Cinthio and Whetstone. But when all is said, the artifice is one which befits comedy rather than tragedy, and after the intense imaginative emotion in the characters of Claudio, Angelo, and Isabella, the ease with which the abominable. wickedness of Angelo is dismissed, in consideration of the successful trick by which he has been duped, attenuates the moral impression which the play is otherwise qualified to We must also deduct from the merits of Measure for Measure the inferior quality of the comedy. The character of Elbow is a poor reproduction of Dogberry; the other minor personages, Mistress Overdone, Pompey, and Abhorson, are representatives of the vilest professions; and though the ribald Lucio serves to bring out by contrast the snowy purity of the mind of Isabella, his nauseous discourses might have been omitted without in any way affecting the structure of the play.

create.

All's Well that Ends Well and Measure for Measure are evidently closely related to each other: so too are Pericles, Cymbeline, and The Winter's Tale, though in quite a different way. These are probably all works of the same period. Pericles, as is shown by the text published in 1608, must have been produced on the stage about 1607.

The Winter's Tale was first published in the folio of 1623, but is described in that year by Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels, as an "old" play, licensed by Sir George Buck. As Sir George was licenser of plays from nearly the beginning of the century, this reference does not help to make the date of composition precise, but the acting of The Winter's Tale is mentioned by Simon Forman in 1611, and from its general resemblance to the other two plays with which I have classed it, it may fairly be assigned to some year between that date and the representation of Pericles. Of Cymbeline, we only know that it first appears in the folio of 1623: it has points of likeness both to Pericles and to The Winter's Tale; but there is no external evidence to suggest the date of its production on the stage.

All three plays belong to a group of tragi-comedies, the incidents in them being of a tragic cast, but the conclusion happy. They differ, however, from All's Well that Ends Well and Measure for Measure, in so far as the motive of those plays is thoroughly dramatic,-having the beginning, middle, and end required by Aristotle,—while the group with which we have now to deal may rather be described as dramatised romances. In other words, an epic character prevails in them as in the plots of the Greek novels, one or more leading personages are conducted, without any limitations of place or time, through a series of adventurous misfortunes to a state of ultimate security moreover, in all the three plays the elements of romance are very similar. Each of them, for example, has an innocent and unfortunate heroine, Marina, Imogen, Perdita; in each of them parents lose children, who are finally restored to them. In Pericles, as in The Winter's Tale, a wife, supposed to be dead, is brought back to her husband; while in the latter play, as in Cymbeline, a husband, suspicious of his wife's fidelity, orders either her or her child, to be slain; the heroines of Pericles and The Winter's Tale have each names significant of their fortunes; in Pericles, Dionyza, jealous on behalf of her child, seeks to destroy Marina, just as the Queen in Cymbeline

attempts to remove Imogen from the succession to the kingdom, to make way for her son, Cloten.

Looking to the structure of these plays, we find that Pericles is founded on the prose narrative of Laurence Twine, entitled: The Pattern of painful Adventures containing the most excellent, pleasant, and variable History of the strange accidents that befell unto Prince Apollonius, the Lady Lucina, his Wife, and Tharsia, his Daughter, and also on Gower's story of King Appolinus of Tyre, in the Confessio Amantis.1

The progress of the action is marked by the entrance of Gower at the beginning of each act, who explains, after the manner of a chorus, the unrepresented events which are supposed to have happened in the interval. He is thrice accompanied by a Dumb Show. Both these stage devices are found in Peele's Battle of Alcazar. The monotonous character of the blank verse, and the frequent interspersion of rhymes, in the first two acts, suggest an early date for the composition: on the other hand, the dialogue in the third and fourth acts is in Shakespeare's latest manner; and, assuming the work as a whole to be his, it seems possible-accepting the tradition of Dryden, that Pericles was the poet's earliest work-to conclude that in his later years he patched up his crude performance for the stage by inserting the striking episode of Marina.2

On the other hand, there is no sign that Cymbeline was one of Shakespeare's early productions. The framework of the play is dramatic, being founded on Boccaccio's tale of the wager made by Bernabo Lomellia of Genoa as to his wife's virtue, and the consequences that followed.3 With this is blended the history of Cymbeline's refusal to pay tribute to the Romans, as related by Holinshed; * but the two elements are so skilfully welded together by the actions of the hero Posthumus Leonatus, and the violence of the imagery and the occasional harshness 1 Shakespeare's Library, Part i. vol. iv. pp. 179-334. 2 Prologue to Circe.

3 Shakespeare's Library, vol. ii. p. 189.

4 Holinshed's Chronicle (1808), vol. i. pp. 479-480.

The Winter's Tale was first published in the folio of 1623, but is described in that year by Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels, as an "old" play, licensed by Sir George Buck. As Sir George was licenser of plays from nearly the beginning of the century, this reference does not help to make the date of composition precise, but the acting of The Winter's Tale is mentioned by Simon Forman in 1611, and from its general resemblance to the other two plays with which I have classed it, it may fairly be assigned to some year between that date and the representation of Pericles. Of Cymbeline, we only know that it first appears in the folio of 1623 it has points of likeness both to Pericles and to The Winter's Tale; but there is no external evidence to suggest the date of its production on the stage.

All three plays belong to a group of tragi-comedies, the incidents in them being of a tragic cast, but the conclusion happy. They differ, however, from All's Well that Ends Well and Measure for Measure, in so far as the motive of those plays is thoroughly dramatic,—having the beginning, middle, and end required by Aristotle,—while the group with which we have now to deal may rather be described as dramatised romances. In other words, an epic character prevails in them as in the plots of the Greek novels, one or more leading personages are conducted, without any limitations of place or time, through a series of adventurous misfortunes to a state of ultimate security moreover, in all the three plays the elements of romance are very similar. Each of them, for example, has an innocent and unfortunate heroine, Marina, Imogen, Perdita; in each of them parents lose children, who are finally restored to them. In Pericles, as in The Winter's Tale, a wife, supposed to be dead, is brought back to her husband; while in the latter play, as in Cymbeline, a husband, suspicious of his wife's fidelity, orders either her or her child, to be slain; the heroines of Pericles and The Winter's Tale have each names significant of their fortunes; in Pericles, Dionyza, jealous on behalf of her child, seeks to destroy Marina, just as the Queen in Cymbeline

141

attempts to remove Imogen from the succession to the kingdom, to make way for her son, Cloten.

stage devices are found in Peele's Battle of Alcazar. Both these The monotonous character of the blank verse, and the frequent interspersion of rhymes, in the first two acts, suggest an early date for the composition: on the other hand, the dialogue in the third and fourth acts is in Shakespeare's latest manner; and, assuming the work as a whole to be his, it seems possible-accepting the tradition of Dryden, that Pericles was the poet's earliest work-to conclude that in his later years he patched up his crude performance for the stage by inserting the striking episode of Marina.2

On the other hand, there is no sign that Cymbeline was one of Shakespeare's early productions. The framework of the play is dramatic, being founded on Boccaccio's tale of the wager made by Bernabo Lomellia of Genca as to his wife's virtue, and the consequences that followed3 With this is blended the history of Cymbeline's refusal to pay tribute to the Romans, as related by Holleshed; but the two elements are by the actions of the hero Posthumus Leonatus and the so sfully welded together violence of the imagery and the occasional shness

1 Shakespeare's Library. Pri iv. pp. 179-5

2 Prologes Cone

Shakespeare's Libro

p. 189.

♦ Holinshed's Chronicle (152 - i pp. 4

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A History of English Poetry, Volume 4