the stage to the contrary, the becoming language of heroic manhood. The violent language of Coriolanus is deprecated by his friends, and raises a furious antagonism in his enemies. Side by side with Cæsar's high conception of himself, we have the humorous expression of his greatness by blunt Casca and the sneering of cynical Cassius. In the case of Cæsar, too, there is a profound contrast between his lofty declaration of immovable constancy and the immediate dethronement of the god to lifeless clay. We must not take the rant of Cæsar, Coriolanus, or Antony by itself simply as rant, and wish with Ben Jonson that it had been blotted out. We must consider whether it does not become the Roman character: we must remember that a varied artist like Shakespeare may be allowed an occasional rant as a stretch to powers weary of the ordinary level; and above all, we must observe how it is regarded by other personages in the drama—in what light it is presented to the audience.

IV. HIS DELINEATION OF CHARACTER.

One large deduction must always be made from our assertion of Shakespeare's truth to nature. All his personages, except intended Malaprops, are supposed to have the gift of perfect expression. The poet is the common interpreter. Gervinus, indeed, professes to find in some cases a correspondence between characters and their mode of expression; but we may rest assured that all such discoveries are reached by twisting accident into the semblance of design. We might as soon try to argue that it was natural for Shakespeare's personages to speak in blank verse. It is expected of a dramatist that he shall give as perfect expression as he can to the emotions and thoughts that occur: the conditions of his art impose no limits upon him in this direction except that his personages must not illustrate their meaning by allusions flagrantly beyond the possibilities of their knowledge. If the emotions of the dramatis persona are in keeping with their characters and their situations, and are at the same time theatrically effective, the dramatist has fulfilled the weightier part of dramatic law.

Shakespeare's personages have all their author's vividness, energy, and delicacy of language, and all the abstractness of phrase and profusion of imagery characteristic of the Elizabethans. Shakespeare could never have been what he is had he been fettered by considerations of exact truth to nature or to history. We are not to believe that when he put into Macbeth's mouth the famous adjuration of the witches, he paused to consider whether a man in such a situation would naturally have so much to say: he took a firm grasp of the heroic exaltation proper to such a moment,

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and gave his imagination full swing to body it forth to the audience. Nor must we take exception to the abstruse, antithetical, and metaphysical statement of the conflict of motives in Macbeth's soliloquies, and say that such coherence and figurative force of expression would have been impossible in a rude thane so violently agitated; enough that such an internal conflict was natural to a man of Macbeth's character-the poet must be left free to express the fluctuating passion with all the force of his genius.

Nor did Shakespeare impede the free movement of his genius by vexatious attention to little details of costume and surroundings: he makes Romans toss caps in the air, and wave hats in scorn, makes Hector quote Aristotle, makes Mantuan outlaws swear by the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar. Yet such was the vivid and searching force of his intellect, the quickness of his constructive energy, that in a brief effort of intense concentration, he was able to realise a scene in its essential circumstances and feelings with a propriety that the mere scholar would not have attained after years spent in the laborious accumulation of accurate particulars. He could hardly have seized the leading features with such freshness had he stood hesitating and consulting authorities about details: he went in boldly, and his clearness of insight kept him right in the main. Hazlitt quotes his picture of Caliban as a special example of his truth to nature. Now the realisation of Caliban is not faultless. It does not seem to have been observed that though Caliban tastes intoxicating liquor for the first time from the flask of Stephano, yet, at the end of the play, he expresses a civilised contempt for a drunkard. Still we should not be disposed for a slight inadvertence like this-which doubtless might be plausibly argued to be no inadvertence at all, but a stroke of profound wisdom-to moderate very much what Hazlitt says, that "the character of Caliban not only stands before us with a language and manners of its own, but the scenery and situation of the enchanted island he inhabits, the traditions of the place, its strange noises, its hidden recesses, his frequent haunts and ancient neighbourhood, are given with a miraculous truth of nature, and with all the familiarity of an old recollection." This is very far from being literally true; yet when we compare Shakespeare's characters with what other dramatists have accomplished, we must admit that some such superhuman exaggeration is needed to give the ordinary reader a just idea of his marvellous pre-eminence.

Shakespeare's historical plays afford the most unambiguous and indisputable evidence of his close study of character, and his inexhaustible fertility in giving it expression. He could not merely sum up a character in such general language as he puts into the mouth of the Duchess of York concerning her son Richard :

ness.

"Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy;

Thy school-days frightful, desperate, wild, and furious,
Thy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous,

Thy age confirmed, proud, subtle, bloody, treacherous."

But he had a living and manageable knowledge of the subjective moods and objective manifestations of the character thus summed up; he could imagine the feelings, actions, and artifices of such a man under a great variety of circumstances. Many people have knowledge of character enough to draw the general outlines of Richard, but who has shown sufficient knowledge of character to embody such a conception? This power is shown in all his plays, but is most conspicuous and easily recognised in his historical plays, because there he had more definite materials for his imagination to lay hold of and work into consistent characterisations. What chiefly makes his characters so life-like is their many-sidedThe poet's just sense of clear broad dramatic effect is shown in making his leading characters approach to well-marked types; but the various characters are much more than narrow abstractions -each has traits that individualise him, and strongly colour his behaviour. Take his soldiers, his mighty men of war, the bastard Faulconbridge in "King John," Hotspur in " Henry IV.," Coriolanus, and Antony. All have a powerful theatrical effect as men of heroic strength and courage, but each is a distinct character: the Bastard is individualised by his robust hearty humour and unpretentious loyalty; Hotspur, by his wasp-stung impatience, absorbed manner, and irresistible ebullience of animal spirits; Coriolanus, by his patrician pride; Antony, by his oratorical skill, his fondness for the theatre, and his sensuality. The various qualities of each are consistent with their warlike reputation, and studiously consistent with one another. So his kings, John, Richard II., Henry IV., Henry V., Henry VI., Henry VIII., all have a certain kingly dignity, and yet they are distinct individuals: the weak kings, Richard, John, and Henry VI., are weak in different and characteristic ways-Richard from impulsive generosity, John from moral obliquity, Henry from constitutional imbecility. Look again at the extraordinary circle of sorrowing women round Richard III., how skilfully they are distinguished: the she-wolf Margaret, the motherly old Duchess, the weak and yielding Anne, the highspirited and clever Elizabeth, bear their sorrows in widely different attitudes. Or we might make a small gallery of portraits of high ecclesiastics—the worldly smooth papal legate Pandulph in " King John," the fiery unscrupulous Beaufort in "Henry VI.," the ambitious noble-minded Wolsey, the meek but firm Cranmer-all exhibited with unmistakable individuality.

Of his historical plays, the First "Henry IV." is one of the finest in study of character. The classical histories also abound in

fine discrimination. "Troilus and Cressida" is strongly coloured by the medieval prejudice in favour of the Trojans, which has led the dramatist to present the fighting heroes of the Greeks as stupid blocks, mere draught-oxen yoked by superior intellect to plough up the wars; but the various conceptions are worked out with very skilful touches. "Julius Cæsar" also contains very clearly marked delineations, -Brutus, Cassius, Casca, Antony, Portia: the dramatist worked from translated authorities, but no one has ventured to dispute the essentials of his interpretations. None of the Roman plays, however, contain finer characterisation than the two parts of "Henry IV.," which between them exhibit the characters of the King himself, the Prince, Hotspur, Glendower, Lady Percy, Falstaff and his companions. The great magician, Glendower, is drawn with remarkable delicacy; his indulgence towards the whims of Hotspur is a very happy stroke, in fine keeping with the qualities found in union with his deep knowledge and lofty pretensions ("I Henry IV.,” iii. 1):

"In faith he is a worthy gentleman,
Exceedingly well read, and profited

In strange concealments, valiant as a lion
And wondrous affable, and as bountiful
As mines of India."

There are a good many points of resemblance between Prince Henry and Hamlet, although they seem to stand contrasted as examples of princely gaiety and princely melancholy. Harry might pass for Ophelia's picture of Hamlet before his noble mind was overthrown: he has "the courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword." True, these qualities in Harry are smothered up from the world when first he is introduced to us; but when he has mounted the throne his friends reckon up his virtues and argue that he must have used wildness as a veil to contemplation. They say (" Henry V.,” i. 1, 38) :—

"Hear him but reason in divinity,

And all-admiring with an inward wish
You would desire the king were made a prelate ;
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs

You'ld say it hath been all in all his study;
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle rendered you in music;

Turn him to any course of policy
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose
Familiar as his garter: that, when he speaks,
The air, a chartered libertine, is still,

And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears
To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences.

Further, as Harry is opposed to impatient and warlike Hotspur,

and is anxious to try skill in arms with him, so Hamlet is opposed to Laertes. And the resemblance goes deeper. Harry is eminently a conscientious man: he assumes the crown with a deep sense of his responsibilities, and will not undertake the war with France and involve the two nations in bloodshed until he is fully assured by his counsellors of the perfect justice of his cause ("Henry V.," i. 2, 10-30). In like manner Hamlet abstains from the bloody business of revenge till he obtains unequivocal proofs of his uncle's guilt and utter badness of heart. Nor is Harry's companionship with Falstaff inconsistent with Hamlet's character. The prince goes with that wild set for the purpose of studying them and seeing life ("2 Henry IV.," iv. 4, 68), as Hamlet frequented the players. And he is not without gloomy fits: he is not always in the vein for doffing the world aside and bidding it pass. His father's description of him would apply exactly to Hamlet:—

"For he is gracious, if he be observed;

He hath a tear for pity and a hand

Open as day for melting charity:

Yet notwithstanding, being incensed, he's flint,
As humorous as winter and as sudden

As flaws congealed in the spring of day,

His temper, therefore, must be well observed:
Chide him for faults, and do it reverently,

When you perceive his blood inclined to mirth;
But being moody, give him line and scope."

Such a prince might very easily fall into melancholy, if an uncle married his mother within two months of his father's death and "popped in between the election and his hopes.”

Hamlet, however, is younger than the companion of Falstaff. There is no ground whatsoever for the prevailing notion that Hamlet's age must be set down as thirty. It proceeds upon two quite unfounded assumptions: that the married life of the player King and Queen corresponds exactly in its duration of thirty years to the married life of Hamlet's father and mother, and that the Gravedigger is our only explicit authority. Several circumstances show that Hamlet's age is at the utmost seventeen or eighteen. He has just returned from the University of Wittenberg, and wishes to go back; the boy that played the woman's part when he was there is not yet too old for the office; his friend Horatio is still there, Laertes is just setting out on his travels. The usual age for youths at that stage of their education in Shakespeare's England was between sixteen and eighteen. And if our philosophical German friends should insist that Shakespeare had his own idea of the proper age for leaving the University, and that that age was thirty, what are we to