a

adopted a single hint for his descriptions, or gentleness. The instant the idea enters the a line for his dialogue; while in point of passion mind of Leontes the passion is at its height:and sentiment Greene is cold, formal, and

“I have tremor cordis on me:-my heart artificial—the very opposite of everything in

dances." Skakespeare."

Very different is the jealous king of Greene : Without wearying the reader with any

“ These and such-like doubtful thoughts, a very extensive comparisons of the novel and long time smothering in his stomach, began at the drama, we shall run through the pro- lasť to kindle in his mind a secret mistrust, duction of Greene, to which our great poet which, increased by suspicion, grew at last to a has incidentally imparted a real interest.

flaming jealousy that so tormented him as he “In the country of Bohemia,” says the could take no rest.” novel,“there reigned a king called Pandosto.”

Coleridge has described the jealousy of LeThe · Leontes' of Shakspere is the ‘Pandosto'

ontes with incomparable truth of analysis :of Greene. The Polixenes of the play is Egistus in the novel :

The idea of this delightful drama is a genuine

jealousy of disposition, and it should be imme" It so happened that Egistus, King of Sicilia, diately followed by the perusal of “Othello,' who in his youth had been brought up with which is the direct contrast of it in every Pandosto, desirous to show that neither tract of particular. For jealousy is a vice of the mind, time nor distance of place could diminish their a culpable tendency of the temper, having former friendship, provided a navy of ships, and certain well-known and well-defined effects and sailed into Bohemia to visit his old friend and concomitants, all of which are visible in Leontes, companion."

and, I boldly say, not one of which marks its

presence in Othello;such as, first, an excitHere, then, we have the scene of the action ability by the most inadequate causes, and an reversed. The jealous king is of Bohemii, eagerness to snatch at proofs; secondly, a gross-his injured friend of Sicilia. But the ness of conception, and a disposition to degrade visitor sails into Bohemia. The wife of Pan- the object of the passion by sensual fancies and dosto is Bellaria; and they have a young son images; thirdly, a sense of shame of his own called Garinter. Pandosto becomes jealous, feelings exhibited in a solitary moodiness of slowly, and by degrees; and there is at least humour, and yet, from the violence of the passion, some want of caution in the queen to justify forced to utter itself, and therefore catching it:

occasions to ease the mind by ambiguities,

equivoques, by talking to those who cannot, and “Bellaria noting in Egistus a princely and who are known not to be able to, understand bountiful mind, adorned with sundry and ex- what is said to them,-in short, by soliloquy in cellent qualities, and Egistus finding in her a the form of dialogue, and hence a confused virtuous and courteous disposition, there grew broken, and fragmentary manner; fourthly, a such a secret uniting of their affections, that the dread of vulgar ridicule, as distinct from a high one could not well be without the company of sense of honour, or a mistaken sense of duty; the other."

and lastly, and immediately consequent on this, The great author of Othello' would not

a spirit of selfish vindictiveness."* deal with jealousy after this fashion. He

The action of the novel and that of the had already produced that immortal portrait drama continue in a pretty equal course.

Pandosto tampers with his cupbearer, Franion, “Of one, not easily jealous, but, being wrought, to poison Egistus; and the cupbearer, terriPerplex'd in the extreme.”

fied at the fearful commission, reveals the

design to the object of his master's hatred. He had now to exhibit the distractions of a

Eventually they escape together :mind to which jealousy was native; to depict the terrible access of passion, uprooting in

“Egistus, fearing that delay might breed a moment all deliberation, all reason, all

BELLARIA

AND

THE

danger, and willing that the grass should not be matter, there was word brought him that his cut from under his feet, taking bag and baggage, young son Garinter was suddenly dead, which by the help of Franion conveyed himself and news so soon as Bellaria heard, surcharged before his men out at a postern gate of the city, so with extreme joy and now suppressed with heavy secretly and speedily, that without any suspicion sorrow, her vital spirits were so stopped that they got to the sea-shore; where, with many a she fell down presently dead, and could never bitter curse taking their leave of Bohemia, they be revived.” went aboard."

Greene mentions only the existence and Bellaria is committed to prison where she the death of the king's son. The dramatic gives birth to a daughter. The guard exhibition of Mamillius by Shakspere is “ carried the child to the king, who, quite devoid amongst the most charming of his sketches. of pity, commanded that without delay it should

The affection of the father for his boy in the be put in the boat, having neither sail nor midst of his distraction, and the tenderness rudder to guide it, and so to be carried into the of the poor child, to whom his father's midst of the sea, and there left to the wind and ravings are unintelligiblewave as the destinies please to appoint.”

“I am like you, they say," — The queen appeals to the oracle of Apollo;

are touches of nature such as only one man and certain lords are sent to Delphos, where has produced. How must he have studied they receive this decree :

the inmost character of childhood to have SUSPICION IS NO PROOF: JEALOUSY IS AN UN- given us the delicious little scene of the EQUAL JUDGE:

IS CHASTE; EGISTUS

second act!BLAMELESS: FRANION A TRUE SUBJECT; PANDOSTO

“ Her. What wisdom stirs amongst you? TREACHEROUS: HIS BABE INNOCENT;

Come, sir, now, KING SHALL LIVE WITHOUT AN HEIR, IF THAT

I am for you again : Pray you, sit by us, WHICH IS LOST BE NOT FOUND."

And tell 's a tale. On their return, upon an appointed day, the Mam. Merry, or sad, shall 't be? queen was “brought in before the judgment- Her. As merry as you will. seat.” Shakspere has followed a part of the Mam.

A sad tale 's best tragical ending of this scene; but he pre

for winter: serves his injured Hermione, to be reunited I have one of sprites and goblins. to her daughter after years of solitude and Her. Let's have that, good sir. suffering.

Come on, sit down :-Come on, and do your

best “Bellaria had no sooner said but the king

To fright me with your sprites: you 're commanded that one of his dukes should read

powerful at it. the contents of the scroll, which, after the

Mam. There was a man, — commons had heard, they gave a great shout,

Her. Nay, come, sit down : then on. rejoicing and clapping their hands that the

Mam. Dwelt by a churchyard ;-I will tell queen was clear of that false accusation. But

it softly; the king, whose conscience was a witness against Yon crickets shall not hear it. him of his witless fury and false suspected

Her.

Come on then, jealousy, was so ashamed of his rash folly that

And give't me in mine ear.” he entreated his nobles to persuade Bellaria to forgive and forget these injuries; promising not It requires the subsequent charm of a Perdita only to show himself a loyal and loving husband, to put that poor boy out of our thoughts. but also to reconcile himself to Egistus and The story of the preservation of the deserted Franion; revealing then before them all the infant is prettịly told in the novel :cause of their secret flight, and how treacherously he thought to have practised his death, if the “It fortuned a poor mercenary shepherd that good mind of his cupbearer had not prevented dwelt in Sicilia, who got his living by other his purpose. As thus he was relating the whole men's flocks, missed one of his sheep, and,

6

thinking it had strayed into the covert that was O'er sixteen years, and leave the growth hard by, sought very diligently to find that untried which he could not see, fearing either that the Of that wide gap; since it is in my power wolves or eagles had undone him (for he was so To o'erthrow law, and in one self born hour poor as a sheep was half his substance), wandered To plant and o'erwhelm custom.” down towards the sea-cliffs to see if perchance Lyly, without such an apology, gives us a the sheep was browsing on the sea-ivy, whereon lapse of forty years in bis ‘Endymion.' they greatly do feed; but not finding her there, Dryden and Pope depreciated the 'Winter's as he was ready to return to his flock he heard Tale!' and no doubt this violation of the a child cry, but, knowing there was no house near, he thought he had mistaken the sound, unity of time was one of the causes which and that it was the bleating of his sheep. blinded them to its exquisite beauties. But Wherefore looking more narrowly, as he cast his

Dr. Johnson, without any special notice of eye to the sea he spied a little boat, from whence, the case before us, has made a triumphant as he attentively listened, he might hear the cry defence against the French critics of Shakto come. Standing a good while in amaze, at spere's general disregard of the unities of last he went to the shore, and, wading to the time and place :boat, as he looked in he saw the little babe lying

By supposition, as place is introduced, time all alone ready to die for hunger and cold,

may be extended; the time required by the wrapped in a mantle of scarlet richly em

fable elapses for the most part between the broidered with gold, and having a chain about

acts; for, of so much of the action as is reprethe neck."

sented, the real and poetical duration is the Although the circumstances of the child's same. If, in the first act, preparations for war exposure are different, Shakspere adopts the against Mithridates are represented to be made shepherd's discovery pretty literally. He in Rome, the event of the war may, without even makes him about to seek his sheep by absurdity, be represented in the catastrophe as the sea-side, “ browsing on the sea-ivy." The happening in Pontus. We know that there is infant in the novel is taken to the shepherd's that we are neither in Rome nor Pontus-that

neither war nor preparation for war; we know home, and is brought up by his wife and

neither Mithridates nor Lucullus are before us. himself under the name of Fawnia. In a

The drama exhibits successive imitations of narrative the lapse of sixteen years may successive actions, and why may not the second occur without any violation of propriety. imitation represent an action that happened The shepherd of Greene, every night at his years after the first, if it be so connected with it coming home, would sing to the child and

that nothing but time can be supposed to dance it on his knee : then, a few lines intervene? Time is, of all modes of existence, onward, the little Fawnia is seven years old; most obsequious to the imagination; a lapse of and very shortly,

years is as easily conceived as a passage of hours.

In contemplation we easily contract the time of “when she came to the age of sixteen years real actions, and therefore willingly permit it she so increased with exquisite perfection both to be contracted when we only see their imiof body and mind, as her natural disposition tation."* did bewray that she was born of some high parentage."

Shakspere has exhibited his consummate

art in opening the fourth act with Polixenes These changes, we see, are gradual. But in and Camillo, of whom we have lost sight a drama, whose action depends upon a since the end of the first. Had it been manifest lapse of time, there must be a otherwise, -had he brought Autolycus, and sudden transition. Shakspere is perfectly Florizel, and Perdita, at once upon the scene, aware of the difficulty; and he diminishes the continuity of action would have been it by the introduction of Time as a Chorus :

6 When you

dita :

commencement of a new play. Shakspere But Greene was unequal to conceive the made the difficulties of his plot bend to his grace of mind which distinguishes Perdita :art; instead of wanting art, as Ben Jonson

“Sir, my gracious lord, says. Autolycus and the Clown prepare us

To chide at your extremes it not becomes me; for Perdita ; and when the third scene opens,

0, pardon, that I name them : your high self, what a beautiful vision lights upon this The gracious mark o' the land, you have earth! There perhaps never was such a obscurid union of perfect simplicity and perfect grace With a swain's wearing; and me, poor lowly as in the character of Perdita. What an maid, exquisite idea of her mere personal appear- Most goddess-like prank'd up." ance is presented in Florizel's rapturous

Contrast this with Greene : exclamation,do dance, I wish you

“Fawnia, poor soul, was no less joyful that, A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do

being a shepherd, fortune had favoured her so Nothing but that!”

as to reward her with the love of a prince,

hoping in time to be adranced from the daughter Greene, in describing the beauties of his of a poor farmer to be the wife of a rich king." shepherdess, deals only in generalities :

Here we see a vulgar ambition, rather than “It happened not long after this that there

a deep affection. Fawnia, in the hour of was a meeting of all the farmers' daughters in discovery and danger, was quite incapable Sicilia, whither Fawnia was also bidden as the

of exhibiting the feminine dignity of Permistress of the feast, who, having attired herself in her best garments, went among the rest of

“I was not much afcard: for once, or twice, her companions to the merry meeting, there

I was about to speak; and tell him plainly, spending the day in such homely pastimes as

The selfsame sun that shines upon his court shepherds use. As the evening grew on and

Hides not his visage from our cottage, but their sports ceased, each taking their leave

Looks on alike.—Will 't please you, sir, be at other, Fawnia, desiring one of her companions

[to FLORIZEL. to bear her company, went home by the flock to

I told you what would come of this: 'Beseech see if they were well folded; and, as they re

you, turned, it fortuned that Dorastus (who all that

Of your own state take care: this dream of day had been hawking, and killed store of game)

mine, encountered by the way these two maids, and,

Being now awake, I 'll queen it no inch casting his eye suddenly on Fawnia, he was half

farther, afraid, fearing that with Acteon he had seen

But milk my ewes, and weep." Diana, for he thought such exquisite perfection could not be found in any mortal creature. As This is something higher than the sentiment thus he stood in amaze, one of his pages told of a “queen of curds and cream." him that the maid with the garland on her head In the novel we have no trace of the was Fawnia, the fair shepherd whose beauty was interruption by the father of the princely so much talked of in the court. Dorastus, de

lover in the disguise of a guest at the sirous to see if nature had adorned her mind

shepherd's cottage. Dorastus and Fawnia with any inward qualities, as she had decked

flee from the country without the knowledge her body with outward shape, began to question

of the king. The ship in which they embark with her whose daughter she was, of what age,

is thrown by a storm upon the coast of and how she had been trained up? who answered

Bohemia. him with such modest reverence and sharpness

Messengers are despatched in of wit, that Dorastus thought her outward beauty

search of the lovers; and they arrive in was but a counterfeit to darken her inward

Bohemia with the request of Egistus that qualities, wondering how so courtly behaviour the companions in the flight of Dorastus could be found in so simple a cottage, and

shall be put to death. The secret of Fawnia's cursing fortune that had shadowed wit and birth is discovered by the shepherd ; and her beauty with such hard fortune.”

father recognises her. But the previous

gone?

a

circumstances exhibit as much grossness of the region of the literal that it would be conception on the part of the novelist, as the worse than idle to talk of its costume. When different mai agement of the catastrophe the stage-manager shall be able to reconcile shows the matchless skill and taste of the the contradictions, chronological and geodramatist. We forgive Leontes for his early graphical, with wbich it abounds, he may folly and wickedness; for during sixteen decide whether the characters should wear years has his remorse been bitter and his the dress of the ancient or the modern world, affection constant. The pathos of the fol- and whether the architectural scenes should lowing passage is truly Shaksperean : partake most of the Grecian style of the

times of the Delphic oracle, or of the Italian “ Leon.

Whilst I remember

in the more familiar days of Julio Romano. Her, and her virtues, I cannot forget

We cannot assist him in this difficulty. It My blemishes in them; and so still think of The wrong I did myself : which was so much, may be sufficient for the reader of this deThat heirless it hath made my kingdom; and licious play to know that he is purposely Destroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man

taken out of the empire of the real ;-to Bred his hopes out of.

wander in some poetical sphere where BoPaul.

True, too true, my lord: hemia is but a name for a wild country upon If, one by one, you wedded all the world, the sea, and the oracular voices of the pagan Or, from the all that are took something world are heard amidst the merriment of good,

“Whitsun pastorals” and the solemnities of To make a perfect woman, she, you kill'd, “ Christian burial;" where the “Emperor of Would be unparallel'd.

Russia” represents some dim conception of a Leon. I think so. Kill'd !

mighty monarch of far-off lands; and “that She I kill'd! I did so: but thou strik'st me

rare Italian master, Julio Romano,” stands Sorely, to say I did; it is as bitter

as the abstract personification of excellence Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, in art. It is quite impossible to imagine good now,

that he who, when it was necessary to be Say so but seldom.”

precise, as in the Roman plays, has painted The appropriateness of the title of the manners with a truth and exactness which · Winter's Tale' has been prettily illustrated have left at an inmeasurable distance such by Ulrici :

imitations of ancient manners as the learned “ From the point of view taken in this drama, have perplexed this play with such anomalies

Ben Jonson has produced,—that he should life appears like a singular and serene, even while terrifying, winter's tale, related by the through ignorance or even carelessness. There flickering light of the fire in a rough boisterous

can be no doubt that the most accomplished night, in still and homelike trustiness, by an

scholars amongst our early dramatists, when old grandmother to a listening circle of children dealing with the legendary and the romantic, and grandchildren, while the warm, secure, and purposely committed these anachronisms. happy feeling of the assembly mixes itself with Greene, as we have shown, of whose scholara sense of the fear and the dread of the related ship his friends boasted, makes a ship sail adventures and the cold wretched night without from Bohemia in the way that Shakspere But this arises only through the secret veil makes a ship wrecked upon a Bohemian which lies over the power of chance, and which coast. Yet, when we consider how differently is here spread over the whole. It appears Jonson and Shakspere worked, in their reserene, because everywhere glimmers through spective schools, it is not to be wondered at this veil the bright joyful light of a futurity that Jonson, in his free conversations with leading all to good; because we continually feel Drummond of Hawthornden, in January, that the unhealthy darkness of the present will

1619, should say that “Shakspere wanted be again thrown off even through an equally

art.” obscure inward necessity.”

When Jonson said this, he was in

no laudatory mood. Drummond heads his This comedy is so thoroughly taken out of record of the conversation thus : “ His

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