Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 353, March 1845

We have thus, in part explicitly and in part summarily, documented the TONE, if it may be so called, of Shakspeare's Comic Theatre – being impelled so to do, first of all, by the duty of contradicting, the most injurious and utterly groundless characterization of a critic, whom we cite with the highest esteem and applause; further, by the fear that the positive and unqualified averment of a high and critical authority might entrap a docile and easy reader into an unhappy misrecollection of his own true and clear knowledge upon the matter. Thirdly, we were not sorry to find ourselves engaged in clearing up, once for all, our own hitherto somewhat confused and insecure impressions. In the fourth place, we do always rejoice, and are irresistibly swayed from our equipoise, and are liable to be hurried any lengths, when we fall in with any opportunity of talking in any way about Shakspeare. But in particular we are glad to be obliged to approve and authenticate any general and grounding views of his poetry; and it came not amiss to our humour, in this day of the world, to show how tenderly and reverently the Spirit, who has the most lovingly, largely, and profoundly comprehended humanity, viewed the mistrusted and assailed institutions which have all along built and sustained the societies of men. If there is "beauty" that "maketh beautiful old rhyme," there is verse that reacts upon its matter; the poetry of Shakspeare shall stand in the place of a more easily fallible political science, to strengthen, whilst it adorns, the old pillars of man's world. Song can draw down the moon from the sky – song shall draw and charm many a rugged, uncouth, untamed understanding to a more submissive political docility.

But, indeed, there lurked one other less ambitious motive. What could the accurate Pope mean by this most inaccurate description of his author? We presume that there is an answer. The eulogy which precisely describes Shakspeare, is Pope's own. The imputations against Shakspeare, of which Pope will palliate the edge, are not Pope's. They are the impeachments laid by the adversary, which Pope, zealous of mitigating, too largely and hastily concedes. Standing, then, in bare and sharp opposition, as they do, to the fact, they may serve us as constituting a fact in themselves. They attest the opinion of the day – opinion, at least, prevalent high and wide, since Pope allows it. We can understand the opinion itself only as a confused and excessive exaggeration of the admixture which Shakspeare allowed to the lower comic, in comedy and in tragedy; as a protest – in which how far did Pope join? – against that admixture. The conclusion which this day will draw, must be, that the criticism of Shakspeare in polite circles, at that day, stood low.

"Another cause (and no less strong than the former) may be deduced from our author's being a player, and forming himself first upon the judgments of that body of men whereof he was a member. They have ever had a standard to themselves, upon other principles than those of Aristotle. As they live by the majority, they know no rule but that of pleasing the present humour, and complying with the wit in fashion; a consideration which brings all their judgment to a short point. Players are just such judges of what is right, as tailors are of what is graceful. And in this view it will be but fair to allow, that most of our author's faults are less to be ascribed to his wrong judgment as a poet, than to his right judgment as a player.

"By these men it was thought a praise to Shakspeare, that he scarce ever blotted a line. This they industriously propagated, as appears from what we are told by Ben Jonson in his Discoveries, and from the preface of Heminges and Condell to the first folio edition. But in reality (however it has prevailed) there never was a more groundless report, or to the contrary of which there are more undeniable evidences; as the comedy of the Merry Wives of Windsor, which he entirely new writ; the History of Henry VI., which was first published under the title of The Contention of York and Lancaster, and that of Henry V., extremely improved: that of Hamlet, enlarged to almost as much again as at first, and many others. I believe the common opinion of his want of learning proceeded from no better ground. This too might be thought a praise by some, and to this his errors have as injudiciously been ascribed by others. For it is certain, were it true, it could concern but a small part of them; the most are such as are not properly defects, but superfœtations; and arise not from want of learning or reading, but from want of thinking or judging: or rather (to be more just to our author) from a compliance to those wants in others. As to a wrong choice of the subject, a wrong conduct of the incidents, false thoughts, forced expressions, &c., if these are not to be ascribed to the aforesaid accidental reasons, they must be charged upon the poet himself, and there is no help for it. But I think the two disadvantages which I have mentioned, (to be obliged to please the lowest of people, and to keep the worst of company,) if the consideration be extended as far as it reasonably may, will appear sufficient to mislead and depress the greatest genius upon earth. Nay, the more modesty with which such a one is endued, the more he is in danger of submitting and conforming to others against his own better judgment."

On the other hand, as the intellectual destiny of Shakspeare was to be the greatest of dramatists, the trade of a player had its advantages. He learned absolutely what a stage is, what actors can do, and what audiences are. Charles Lamb feebly maintained, that Shakspeare's Plays are unfitted for acting, by being above it. They are above reading too; at least, they are above most – why not say the truth at once – above all readers of them. Yet it would be a pity to leave them unread. They are the best fitted of all plays for acting; for of all plays they best possess the stage, and command the audience. In thus extolling the essential poetry of Shakspeare, he condemns his practical understanding, his art. He oversteps, too, the inabilities of the histrionic art. The inabilities of the histrions themselves, is another matter. The difficulty of understanding Shakspeare, must not be turned into the impossibility of representing him when understood. The power, art, science, capacity, what you will, with which he has fitted his works to their immediate use, shows itself remarkably in this, that as the stage grows in its material means, the play comes out in power, splendour, majesty, magnificence, as if the stage but grew to the dimensions of that which it must contain; and it must have been hundreds of times felt in the green-room, that only the Plays of Shakspeare try, and form actor and actress, foster and rear them to the height of their possible stature.

"But as to his want of learning, it may be necessary to say something more: there is certainly a vast difference between learning and languages. How far he was ignorant of the latter, I cannot determine; but it is plain he had much reading at least, if they will not call it learning. Nor is it any great matter, if a man has knowledge, whether he has it from one language or another. Nothing is more evident than that he had a taste of natural philosophy, mechanics, ancient and modern history, poetical learning, and mythology: we find him very knowing in the customs, rights, and manners of antiquity. In Coriolanus and Julius Cæsar, not only the spirit, but manners of Romans are exactly drawn: and still a nicer distinction is shown between the manners of the Romans in time of the former and of the latter. His reading in the ancient historians is no less conspicuous, in many references to particular passages, and the speeches copied from Plutarch in Coriolanus may, I think, as well be made an instance of his learning as those copied from Cicero in Catiline, of Ben Jonson's. The manners of other nations in general, the Egyptians, Venetians, French, &c., are drawn with equal propriety. Whatever object of nature or branch of science he either speaks of or describes, it is always with competent, if not extensive knowledge; his descriptions are still exact; all his metaphors appropriated, and remarkably drawn from the true nature and inherent qualities of each subject. When he treats of ethic or politic, we may constantly observe a wonderful justness of distinction as well as extent of comprehension. No one is more a master of the poetical story, or has more frequent allusions to the various parts of it. Mr Waller (who has been celebrated for this last particular) has not shown more learning this way than Shakspeare. We have translations from Ovid published in his name, among those poems which pass for his, and for some of which we have undoubted authority, (being published by himself, and dedicated to his noble patron, the Earl of Southampton.) He appears also to have been conversant in Plautus, from whom he has taken the plot of one of his plays. He follows the Greek authors, and particularly Dares Phrygius, in another; although I will not pretend to say in what language he read them. The modern Italian writers of novels he was manifestly acquainted with; and we may conclude him to be no less conversant with the ancients of his own country; from the use he has made of Chaucer in Troilus and Cressida, and in the Two Noble Kinsmen, if that play be his, as there goes a tradition it was; and indeed it has little resemblance of Fletcher, and more of our author than some of those that have been received as genuine.

"I am inclined to think, this opinion proceeded originally from the zeal of the partisans of our author and Ben Jonson; as they endeavoured to exalt the one at the expense of the other. It is ever the nature of parties to be in extremes; and nothing is so probable, as that because Ben Jonson had much the more learning, it was said, on the one hand, that Shakspeare had none at all; and because Shakspeare had much the most wit and fancy, it was retorted, on the other, that Jonson wanted both. Because Shakspeare borrowed nothing, it was said that Ben Jonson borrowed every thing. Because Jonson did not write extempore, he was reproached with being a year about every piece; and because Shakspeare wrote with ease and rapidity, they cried, he never once made a blot. Nay, the spirit of opposition ran so high, that whatever those of the one side objected to the other, was taken at the rebound, and turned into praises; as injudiciously as their antagonists before had made them objections."

The learning of Shakspeare! Pope, like Dryden, has said well upon it. Shakspeare, the personal friend of men of highest rank, learning, genius; and reading in the English language as much as he chose of the wit and wisdom there entreasured, inherited the mind of the world. What will you have more? That he shall read his own spirit; and, therefore, is he above all men learned. As for that seeming wildness and irregularity of his style, which many are inclined, even at this day, to set down to his imperfect education, we beg you to recollect his more elaborated rhymed poems; his Venus and Adonis; his Rape of Lucrece; his Passionate Pilgrim; his Sonnets. And are you quite sure that some of the most finished, the strictest composition as to language and verse, of his age, shall not be found there, far beyond the experience or even comprehension of Dr Parr and all his scholars?

Reader beloved from old, and with whom we have ever loved, on pleasant landing-place in spacious article, lovingly to confabulate – while printer's devil, forgetful of copy, in the far depths of Altisidora indulged in snoreless sleep – reader, beloved anew, tell us who were the Greeks? "They were that division of mankind in which Homer took mortal existence. Homer spoke Greek." Good. And so, three or five thousand years hence, somebody will be asking somebody, who were the English? "Oh! they inhabited the island in which Shakspeare was born! Then, and a little while before and after. Shakspeare spoke English. He was an Englishman." Good. Ay, ay, rough and ready, and gentle reader, in what civilized part of Central Africa such question and reply will be made, we predict not; but you and we feel, that when and wheresoever the little dialogue shall occur, we two shall have for ourselves our own sufficient share of posthumous reputation, and eke Charles Knight. These twelve volumes always lying on their own line of our table, are Charles' edition of Shakspeare, alone of all our valuables uninsured at the Sun, for they are bound in asbestos. And now, obedient reader, listen to us lecturing, like a philosophical critic as we are, on Pope's Essay on Criticism, involved in these ten volumes, edited twenty years ago by William Roscoe, now with the saints.

Essay on Criticism! What does one expect? Criticism, be it noted, has two phases. This is the first. In its origin, it follows now afar, now close upon the works out of which it has arisen. It describes the methods which genius has half-instinctively, half-thoughtfully followed. It brings out into clear statement, certain movements and felt workings of genius; and it defines formal imitation to workers that shall come. It appears, therefore, as an embodying of rules. This is, in the main, the shape in which criticism appears in classical antiquity. This was the meaning of the name with Pope and his contemporaries. "Dicta sunt omnia," remarks Quinctilian, (insisting upon the order in which nature produces, first, the arts themselves, poetry or eloquence, in power – operative; then, the deduction and exposition of the method,) "antequam præciperentur." And so in Pope and his contemporaries, we read of nothing but RULES – RULES – RULES! At this day, the word then in honour, grates, albeit a smooth one, upon one's ear. It seems to depress and to tame, to shut up and imprison thought, which would range and soar, and asks breath, and vigour, and liberty, from true criticism. The truth is, that since that day the world has turned round, and we are turned philosophers. Thus the second phasis has arisen. We want no longer the rules, but the PRINCIPLES – the facts or the laws in our nature, and the nature of things about us, which have given out the rules; whence they flowed to Homer and to Demosthenes. We will drink from the fountains; not even from those "golden urns!" And with right and with reason, for we, too, are the children of nature. Besides, we will JUDGE Homer and Demosthenes. Without doubt, criticism, founded as an art empirical, tends continually to its second phasis, of a science grounding an art. And it is to be hoped, that something towards this profounder constitution has been attained, and that we, in following down our critics, shall follow out some part of such a progress. In the mean time, let us not rate our predecessors too low, merely upon the showing of their own modesty. Do not believe that Aristotle could propound a rule, through which a principle did not gleam out. And, in sooth, when this Essay sprang from the brain of Pope, – were not, possibly, the papers lying in the desk of Addison, in which he began, for our literature, the deliberate and express examination into the Philosophy of Criticism, within the domain of the beautiful in Art and Nature?

Addison, in a commendatory critique in the Spectator, said, that the observations in the Essay "follow one another without that methodical regularity that would have been requisite in a prose writer." And Warton, in opposition to Warburton, who asserted that it was a regular piece, written on a regular and consistent plan, has spoken scornfully of the Bishop's Commentary, and concluded in his usual forcible-feeble way, that Pope had no plan in the poem at all. Roscoe spiritedly rates Warton for assuming to know Pope's mind better than Pope himself, who gave the Commentary his imprimatur. It may occasionally refine rather too ingeniously, but on the whole it is elucidatory, and Roscoe did well to give it entire in his edition of Pope. The Essay is in one book, but divided into three principal parts or numbers; and Warburton in a few words tells its plan: – "The rest gives the rules for the study of the art of criticism; the second exposes the causes of wrong judgment; and the third marks out the morals of the critic." And Roscoe says, with equal truth, that "a certain degree of order and succession prevails, which leads the reader through the most important topics connected with the subject; thereby uniting the charm of variety with the regularity of art." Adding finely, that "poetry abhors nothing so much as the appearance of formality and restraint."

An excellent feature of the Essay, giving it practical worth, and interesting as native to the character of the writer, is the strenuous requisition to the poet himself, that he shall within his own soul, and for his own use of his own art, accomplish himself in criticism. It is recorded that Walsh, "the muses' judge and friend," said to Pope – "There is at least one virtue of writing in which an English poet of to-day may excel his predecessors; that is – CORRECTNESS." But it is more likely that the perception of this virtue in the poetical intellect of Pope drew out the remark from Walsh, than that the remark suggested to the poet the pursuit of the virtue. Pope, in his verse, in his prose, in his life, rules himself. Deliberated purpose, resolutely adopted and consistently executed, characterises the man and the writer. It is nature, or some profounder control than a casual suggestion of a literary aim, that imparts this pervading character. As little could he owe to another the nice discrimination, the intellectual precision, the delicacy of perception – in a word, the critical sense and apprehension which make up one aspect of the mind, impressed upon the style, generally considered, of Pope. As far, then, as the virtue of correctness is to be predicated of his writings – and we do not believe that the countrymen of a poet go on predicating of him, for generation after generation, gratuitously – we must believe that we have to thank himself for it, and not Walsh.

We said, "UPON THE STYLE, GENERALLY CONSIDERED," – for we acknowledge exceptions and contradictions to the general position; inaccuracies and incorrectnesses, that would make an answer to the question – "What is the correctness of Pope?" a somewhat troublesome affair. But we resolutely insist that when, in his "Essay on Criticism," he calls upon the poet himself severely to school his own mind in preparation; when he requires, that in working he shall not only feel and fancy, but understand too; when, in a word, he claims that he shall possess his art AS AN ART; he speaks, his own spirit impelling; and so stamps a fine personality, which is one mode of originality, on his work.

The praise that is uppermost in one's mind of the Essay on Criticism, is its rectitude of legislation. Pope is an orthodox doctor – a champion of the good old cause. Hence, after almost a century and a half, this poem of a minor (Warburton says his twentieth year) carries in our literature the repute and weight of an authority and a standard. It is of the right good English temper – thoughtful and ardent – discreet and generous – firm, with sensibility – bold and sedate – manly and polished. He establishes himself in well-chosen positions of natural strength, commanding the field; and he occupies them in the style of an experienced leader, with forces judiciously disposed, and showing a resolute front every way of defence and offence. You do not curiously enquire into the novelty of his doctrines. He has done well if, in small compass, he has brought together, and vigorously compacted and expressed with animation, poignancy, and effect, the best precepts. Such writing is beneficial, not simply by the truths which it newly propounds, or more luminously than heretofore unfolds, but by the authority which it vindicates to true art – by the rallying-point which it affords to the loyal adherents of the high and pure muses – by the sympathy which its wins, or confirms, to good letters – by its influence in dispersing pestilent vapours, and rendering the atmosphere wholesome.

In perusing the "Essay on Criticism," the reader is occasionally tempted to ask himself "whether he has under his eyes an art of criticism or an art of poetry." 'Tis no wonder; since, in some sort, the two arts are one and the same. They coincide largely; criticism being nothing else than the reasoned intelligence of poetry. Just the same spirit, power, precision, delicacy, and accomplishment of understanding, which reign in the soul of the great poet creating, rule in that of the good critic judging. The poet, creating, criticizes his own work; he is poet and critic both. The critic is a poet without the creation. As Apelles is eye and hand, both; the critic of Apelles is eye only. This identification, so far as it goes, has been variously grounded and viewed. Of old, it was urged that only the poet is the judge of poetry, the painter of painting, the musician of music, and so on. Such positions proceed upon a high and reverential estimation of art. To judge requires the depth and sharpness of sensibility, the vivid and pathetic imagination, which characterize the artist. It asks more. To see the picture as it should be gazed upon, to hear the poem as it would be listened to, laborious preparation is needed – study, strenuous and exact, learned and searching – that ardent and lover-like communing with nature, the original of arts, and that experience in the powers, the difficulties, and the significancy of art, which only the dedication of the votary to the service of an art can easily be supposed to induce. There is, in practice, a verity and an intimacy of knowledge, without which theoretical criticism wants both light and life. So Pope contends —

"Let such judge others who themselves excel;
And censure freely, who have written well."

He seems, at the same time, to be aware that this doctrine is not likely to find general favour; and that an objection will be taken up by those with whom it is unpalatable, grounded in the poet's liability to be seduced, beguiled, transported, misled, by his sympathy with that which is in the art specifically his own – the inventive power. And he admits the danger; but rebuts the objection by averring that, on the other side, the critic who is not a poet has his own temptation. He will be run away with by his intellectual propensities; the opinion of his own infallibillity; the pleasure of pronouncing sentence – dispositions all, that move to a hasty, and are adverse to a generous, decision.

"Poets are partial to their wit, 'tis true,
But are not critics to their judgment, too?"

The two arts, poetry and the criticism of poetry, thus running together, so as that in the mind of the poet they are one thing, and that it is hard well to distinguish in speaking of them in prose, it will not seem surprising if Pope, intending to write of the lesser, and so inveigled into writing of the greater, should not always distinctly know of which he writes.

Let us cite a celebrated passage as an example of such almost unavoidable confusion.

"First fathom nature, and your judgment frame
By her just standard, which is still the same.
Unerring Nature, still divinely bright,
One clear, unchanged, and universal light;
Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart,
At once the source, and end, and test of art.
Art from that fund each just supply provides,
Works without show, and without pomp presides.
In some fair body thus the informing soul
With spirits feeds, with vigour fills the whole,
Each motion guides, and every nerve sustains,
Itself unseen, but in th' effect remains.
Some, to whom heaven in wit has been profuse,
Want as much more to turn it to its use;
For wit and judgment often are at strife,
Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife.
'Tis more to guide than spur the muse's steed
Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed;
The winged courser, like a generous horse,
Shows most his mettle when you check his course."

Now, lend your ears. Pray, attend.

It these memorable twenty lines – memorable by the truth of the thinking, and the spirited or splendid felicity of expression – the subject of the rules delivered is for two verses – Criticism Proper, that is to say, the faculty of judging in the mind of the critic, who is not necessarily a poet, and whose function in the world is the judgment of the work produced and complete, and exposed for free censure.

"First fathom nature, and your judgment frame
By her just standard, which is still the same."

This general reference to the fountain-head of law and of power, is spoken to the critic – the writer of critiques – the public censurer – the man of judgment.

For the next four lines, the creative power, and the presiding criticism in the mind of the poet, and the judicial criticism in the mind of the official critic, are all three in hand together.

"Unerring Nature, still divinely bright,
One clear, unchanged, and universal light;
Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart,
At once the source, and end, and test of art."

Warburton has remarked, that the two last verses run parallel to one another, inasmuch as "source" respects "life," the ever-welling – "end" reflects "force," for the force of any thing arises from its being directed to its end – and "test" looks back to "beauty," for every thing acquires beauty by its being reduced to its true standard. Very well said.

But in what sense is nature the "end" of art? Warburton explains the word, by "the design of poetry being to convey knowledge of nature in the most agreeable manner." Might not one think that nature is this "end" rather, inasmuch as art aims at reaching nature in our bosoms? In this acceptation, "end" and "force" would precisely belong to one another.

In the mean time, "life" and "source" distinctly concern the creative power in the soul of the poet; art's "end" must be known, and fixedly looked at, as the lodestar by the mariner, by presiding criticism in the same soul; and the "test" of art must evidently be applied by the critic discharging his peculiar functions; whilst "unerring nature," imaged as the sun, enlightens, of course, both poet and critic.

And now the critic, who was at the outset of the strain – six verses ago – alone in contemplation, is dismissed for good or for ill. The poet is on Pegasus's back; the lashing out of a heel kicks the unfortunate devil to the devil; and away we go.

For one verse, the creative power, and the presiding criticism in the mind of the poet, are confounded together under the freshly suggested name – ART.

"Art from that fund each just supply provides."

That is to say, "Art," as the inventive power in the poet, draws from the sole "fund," nature, its abundant "supplies." Art, as the critical power in the poet, takes care that precisely the "just" supply be drawn.

In the next line, this same art, signifies this presiding criticism only.

"Works without show, and without pomp presides."

Clearly, the intent, inostensive, virtuous faculty of criticism alone, influencing, guarding, leading, and ruling.

Then out of the four lines, which elaborate an excellent simile, due in propriety to the presiding criticism, two are chequered with a lingering recollection of the creative power —