its foundations and its results. He that truly works out the exhibition of this principle must paint men, let the scene be the Rome of the first Tribunes, or the Venice of the last Doges. With the very slightest changes of accessaries, the principle stands for the contests between aristocracy and democracy, in any country or in any age— under a republic or a monarchy. The historical truth, and the philosophical principle, which Shakspere has embodied in 'Coriolanus' are universal. But suppose he had possessed the means of treating the subject with what some would call historical accuracy; had learnt that Plutarch, in the ceeded in his principal object, which was to exhibit the characters of the drama to the spectators of his days precisely as they appeared to those of their own.' The plan was scholastic, but it was not judicious. The difference between the dramatis persona and the spectators was too wide; and the very accuracy to which he aspired would seem to take away much of the power of pleasing. Had he drawn men instead of Romans, his success might have been more assured."* We presume to think that there is here a slight confusion of terms. If Jonson had succeeded in his principal object, and had exhibited his characters precisely as they appeared in their own days, his re-story of 'Coriolanus,' was probably dealing presentation would have been the truth. But he has drawn, according to this intelligent critic, Romans instead of men, and therefore his success was not perfectly assured. Not drawing men, he did not draw his characters as they appeared in their own days but as he pieced out their supposed appearance from incidental descriptions or formal characterizations-from party historians or prejudiced rhetoricians. If he had drawn Romans as they were, he would have drawn men as they were. They were not the less men because they were Romans. He failed to draw the men, principally on account of the limited range of his imaginative power; he copied instead of created. He repeated, says Gifford, "the ideas, the language, the allusions," which "could only be readily caught by the contemporaries of Augustus and Tiberius." He gave us, partly on this account also, shadows of life, instead of the "living features of an age so distant from our own," as his biographer yet thinks he gave. Shakspere worked upon different principles, and certainly with a different success. The leading idea of 'Coriolanus'-the pivot upon which all the action turns-the key to the bitterness of factious hatred which runs through the whole drama-is the contest for power between the patricians and plebeians. This is a broad principle, assuming various modifications in various states of society, but very slightly varied in *Memoirs of Jonson,' p. ccxx.-Works, 9 vols. only with a legend; that, if the story is to With his accustomed consummate judgment in his opening scenes, Shakspere throws us at once into the centre of the contending classes of early Rome. We have no description of the nature of the factions; we behold them : With thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as high As I could pick my lance." Till Caius Marcius has become Coriolanus, and we see that the popular violence is under the direction of demagogues-the same "1 Cit. You are all resolved rather to die never-varying result of the same circumthan to famish. Cit. Resolved, resolved! stances we feel no love for him. It is under oppression and ingratitude that his But he has pre 1 Cit. First, you know, Caius Marcius is chief pride becomes sublime. enemy to the people. Cit. We know 't, we know 't. 1 Cit. Let us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own price. Cit. No more talking on 't: let it be done." The foundation of the violence is misery ;its great stimulant is ignorance. The people are famishing for want of corn;-they will kill one man, and that will give them corn at their own price: the murder will turn scarcity into plenty. Hazlitt says that Shakspere "spared no occasion of baiting the rabble." If to show that misery acting upon ignorance produces the same effects in all ages be "baiting the rabble," he has baited them. But he has not painted the "mutinous citizens" with an undiscriminating contempt. One that displays a higher power than his fellows of reasoning or remonstrance, and yet is zealous enough to resist what he thinks injustice, says of Caius Marcius, "Consider you what services he has done for his country." The people are sometimes ungrateful; but Shakspere chose to show that some amongst them could be just. The people have their favourites. 66 Worthy Menenius Agrippa" has the good word of the mutinous citizens. Shakspere gave them no unworthy favourite. His rough humour, his true kindliness, his noble constancy, form a character that the people have always loved, even whilst they are rebuked and chastened. But, if the poet has exhibited the democratic ignorance in pretty strong colours, has he shrunk from presenting us a full-length portrait of patrician haughtiness? Caius Marcius in the first scene claims no sympathies :"Would the nobility lay aside their ruth, And let me use my sword, I'd make a quarry viously deserved our homage, and in some sort our affection. The poet gradually wins us to an admiration of the hero, by the most skilful management. First, through his mother. What a glorious picture of an antique matron, from whom her son equally derived his pride and his heroism, is presented in the exquisite scene where Volumnia and Valeria talk of him they loved, according to their several natures! Who but Shakspere could have seized upon the spirit of a Roman woman of the highest courage and mental power bursting out in words such as these ?— "Vol. His bloody brow With his mail'd hand then wiping, forth he goes; Like to a harvest-man, that's task'd to mow Or all, or lose his hire. Vir. His bloody brow! Oh, Jupiter, no blood! Vol. Away, you fool! it more becomes a man Than gilt his trophy: The breasts of Hecuba, When she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier Than Hector's forehead, when it spit forth blood At Grecian swords' contending. This is a noble preparation for the scenic exhibition of the deeds of Caius Marcius. Amidst the physical strength, and the mental energy, that make the triumphant warrior, the poet, by a few of his magical touches, has shown us the ever-present loftiness of mind that denotes qualities far beyond those which belong to mere animal courage. His contempt of the Romans who are "beaten back," and the "Romans with spoils," is equally withering. It is not sufficient for him to win one battle. The force of character through which he thinks that nothing is done whilst anything remains to do, shows | It puts the individual for the species, the that Shakspere understood the stuff of which one above the infinite many, might before a great general is made. His remonstrance right." Now we apprehend that Shakspere to Cominiushas not treated the subject of Coriolanus "Where is the enemy? Are you lords o' the after this right royal fashion of poetry. He field? If not, why cease you till you are so?" is not in Plutarch. It is supplied to us by a asks a gift of his superior officer : "Cor. I sometime lay, here in Corioli, has dealt fairly with the vices as well as the virtues of his hero. The scene in the second act, in which Coriolanus stands for the consulship, is amongst the most remarkable examples of Shakspere's insight into cha racter. In Plutarch he found a simple fact order. The people represent the opinions that he dislikes, and he therefore dislikes the people. That he has pity and love for humanity, however humble, we have already seen. Coming into contact with the Roman populace for their suffrages, his uppermost thought is "bid them wash their faces and keep their teeth clean." He outwardly despises that vanity of the people which will not reward desert unless it go hand in hand with solicitation. He betrays his contempt for the canvassed, even whilst he is canvassing:: "I will, sir, flatter my sworn brother the Of their bad influence, and their good receives, By objects, which might force the soul to abate Her feeling, render'd more compassionate." We have forgotten the fierce patrician who would make a quarry of the Roman populace. people, to earn a dearer estimation of them; And this, we suppose, is what Hazlittt is a condition they account gentle: and, since objects to in Shakspere's conduct of this the wisdom of their choice is rather to have my play. The character of Coriolanus rises upon hat than my heart, I will practise the insinuating The sufferings and complaints of his nod, and be off to them most counterfeitly: enemies are merged in their factious hatred. that is, sir, I will counterfeit the bewitchment 'Poetry," says the critic, "is right royal." of some popular man, and give it bountifully us. | to the desirers. Therefore, beseech you, I may be consul." The satire is not obsolete. The desperation with which he at last roars out his demand for their voices, as if he were a chorus mocking himself and the people with the most bitter irony, is the climax of this wonderful exhibition : "Your voices: for your voices I have fought; Watch'd for your voices; for your voices, bear Of wounds two dozen odd; battles thrice six I have seen and heard of; for your voices Have done many things, some less, some more: your voices : Indeed, I would be consul." The people have justice enough to elect the man for his deeds: but they have not strength enough to abide by their own election. When they are told by the Tribunes that they have been treated scornfully, they can bear to be rebuked by their demagogues-to have their "ignorant election" revoked-to suffer falsehoods to be put in their mouth,-to be the mere tools of their weak though crafty leaders. It is Shakspere's praise, in his representation of this plebeian and patrician conflict, that he, for the most part, shows the people as they always are,-just, generous, up to a certain point. But put that thing called a demagogue amongst them,-that cold, grovelling, selfish thing, without sympathies for the people, the real despiser of the people, because he uses them as tools, and then there is no limit to their unjust violence. In the subsequent scenes we see not the people at all in the exercise of their own wills. We see only Brutus and Sicinius speaking the voice, not of the people, but of their individual selfishness. In the first scene of the third act the Tribunes insult Coriolanus; and from that moment the lion lashes himself up into a fury which will be deadly. The catastrophe is only deferred when the popular clamour for the Tarpeian Rock subsides into the demand that he should answer to them once again in the market-place. The mother of Coriolanus abates something of her high nature when she counsels her son to a dissembling submission: "Vol. Because that now it lies you on to speak To the people; not by your own instruction, Nor by the matter which your heart prompts you, But with such words that are but roted in Your tongue, though but bastards, and syllables Of no allowance, to your bosom's truth." This is the prudence even of an heroic woman; but she fears for her son. She is somewhat He lowered by the instruction. But the poet knew that a real contempt for the people, allied to a strong desire for the honours which the people have to bestow, must produce this lip-service. Coriolanus does not heed the instructions of his mother. approaches temperately to his questioners; he puts up vows for the safety of Rome from the depths of his full heart; he is in earnest to smother his pride and his resentment, but the coarse Tribune calls him "traitor." There can be but one issue; he is banished. Some of the historians say that, although Coriolanus joined the enemies of his country, he provoked no jealousies amongst the native leaders of those enemies; that he died honoured and rewarded; that his memory was even reverenced at Rome. Shakspere probably knew not this version of the legend of Coriolanus. If he had known it, he would not have adopted it. He had to show the false step which Coriolanus took. He had to teach that his proud resentment hurried him upon a course which brought evils worse than the Tarpeian Rock. And yet we are compelled to admire him; we can scarcely blame him. It has not been our good fortune to see John Kemble in this his greatest character: if we had, we probably should have received into our minds an embodied image of the moral grandeur of that scene when Coriolanus stands upon the hearth of Tullus Aufidius, and says— "Fresh embassies, and suits, words with the minutest traits of the man's | At the moment that Coriolanus has declared character which had preceded them. The to Aufidius answer of Aufidius is not in Plutarch; and here Shakspere invests the rival of Coriolanus with a majesty of language which has for its main object to call us back to the real greatness of the banished man: "Know thou first, I loved the maid I married; never man Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here, Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart Than when I first my wedded mistress saw Bestride my threshold." Brief and rapid is their agreement to make war upon Rome. In the great city herself "Coriolanus is not much missed but with his friends," according to the Tribune; no harm can come to Rome; the popular authority will whip the slave that speaks of evil news. Shakspere again "baits the rabble," according to Hazlitt; though he reluctantly adds, "what he says of them is very true:" "Cit. 'Faith, we hear fearful news. 1 Cit. For mine own part, When I said banish him, I said 't was pity. 2 Cit. And so did I. 3 Cit. And so did I; and, to say the truth, so did very many of us: That we did we did for the best; and though we willingly consented to his banishment, yet it was against our will." When Shakspere made Coriolanus ask the freedom of the poor man that had used him kindly, he showed the tenderness that was at the bottom of that proud heart. When Rome is beleaguered, Cominius reports thus of his unsuccessful mission to her banished son: "Com. I offer'd to awaken his regard For his private friends: His answer to me was, He could not stay to pick them in a pile Of noisome musty chaff: He said, 't was folly For one poor grain or two to leave unburnt, And still to nose the offence." His old general and companion in arms touched nothing but his pride. Menenius, his "beloved in Rome," undertakes a similar mission. The answer of Coriolanus is"Wife, mother, child, I know not. My affairs Are servanted to others." Nor from the state, nor private friends, hereafter Will I lend ear to," his mother, his wife, his child appear. But he will stand "As if a man were author of himself, And knew no other kin." What a scene follows! The warrior is externally calm, as if he were a god, above all passions and affections. The wondrous poetry in which he speaks seems in its full harmony as if it held the man's inmost soul in a profound consistency. But the passion is coming. "I have sat too long" is the prelude to O mother, mother! What have you done? Behold, the heavens do ope, The gods look down, and this unnatural scene Volumnia speaks no other word. The mother and the son, the wife and the husband, the child and the father, have parted for ever. The death of Coriolanus in the "goodly city" of Antium is inevitable: "Cor. Cut me to pieces, Volsces; men and lads, Stain all your edges on me.-Boy! False hound! If you have writ your annals true, 't is there, |
