of the dramatic action and characterization -the condensation or expansion of the thought the tameness or luxuriance of the imagery-the equable flow or the involved harmony of the versification. The real body of a drama is its action and characterization. It is the constant subordination of all the ordinary poetical excellences to the main design, to be carried on through the agency of different passions, temperaments, and humours, that constitutes the dramatic art. To judge of a question of authorship, and especially of such a question with reference to Shakspere, we must not only take into consideration the resemblances in what we call style (we use this for the want of a more comprehensive word), but in the management of the action and the development of the characters. Such inquiries as these are not without their instruction, if they lead us by analysis and comparison to a better appreciation of what constitutes the highest qualities of art. The best copy of a picture is necessarily inferior to the original; but we may better learn the value of the original by a close examination of the copy ;-and this is the position which we are about to take up in the question of the authorship of "The Two Noble Kinsmen.' We hold that in parts it bears a most remarkable resemblance to Shakspere in the qualities of detached thought, of expression, of versification; and not so with reference to Shakspere's early and unformed style, but to the peculiarities of his later period. But we hold, at the same time, that the management of the subject is equally unlike Shakspere; that the poetical form of what is attributed to him is for the most part epic, and not dramatic; that the action does not disclose itself, nor the characters exhibit their own qualities. The fact that, amongst the extraordinary multitude of plays produced in the palmy half-century of the stage, a very great many were composed upon the principle of a division of labour between two, and sometimes three and even four writers, is too satisfactorily established for us to consider that the difficulties attending upon such a partnership would produce imperfect and fragmentary performances where there was not the closest friendship. It is probable, however, that the intimate social life of the poets of that day, many of whom were also actors, led to such a joint invention of plot and character as would enable two or more to work readily upon a defined plan, each bringing to the whole a contribution from his own peculiar stores. The ordinary mixture too of the serious and comic portions of a drama facilitated such an arrangement; and the general introduction of an underplot, sometimes very slightly hung upon the main action, would still further render the union even of more than two writers not a very difficult thing to manage. It must be considered also that the dramatists of that age were all, or very nearly all, thoroughly familiar with stage business. As we have said, many of them were actors; and the literary employment of those who were not so was, if we may use the term, so professional, that it was as necessary for them to be familiar with the practice of the theatre as for a lawyer to know by daily habit the rules of court. All these circumstances made such dramatic partnerships comparatively easy to manage. But we must not cease to bear in mind that these arrangements must always have had especial reference to the particular capacities and excellences of the persons so united, as known by experience, or suggested by their own promptings of what they were most fitted to accomplish. Let us apply these considerations to the case before us. Shakspere and Fletcher, we will assume, agree to write a play on the subject of Chaucer's tale of 'Palamon and Arcite.' It is a subject which Shakspere in some respects would have rejoiced in. It was familiar to many of his audience in the writings of England's finest old poet. It was known to the early stage. It was surrounded with those romantic attributes of the old legendary tale which appear to have seized upon his imagination at a particular period of his life, and that not an early one. But, above all, it was a subject full of deep feeling,-where overwhelming passions were to be brought into contact with habitual affections; a subject, too, not the less in teresting because it required to be treated | tion differently applied. The internal eviwith great nicety of handling. It may be dence of style would lead us to assign the presumed that, if such a partnership had first and last acts to Shakspere. The course been proposed by Fletcher to Shakspere of the action would of necessity adhere pretty (the belief that Shakspere would have closely to the tale of Chaucer; and thus the solicited Fletcher's assistance is not very beginning and the end might have been probable), the younger poet would have written without any very strict reference to offered to the great master of dramatic ac- what was to come between, provided the tion, to the profound anatomist of character, subject were in the hands of an author who to him who knew best how to give to the would look at the completeness of the nardeepest and most complicated emotions their rative as the main thing to be worked out. full and appropriate language-his own Shakspere might have made the preliminary proper task of exhibiting the deep friend- scenes as full as we find them in 'The Two ship, the impassioned rivalry, the terrible Noble Kinsmen ;' but when we look at the hatred, and the final reconciliation of the conciseness with which Chaucer gives the two heroes of the tale. The less practised same scenes, and hurries on to the more poet might have contented himself with the dramatic parts of the subject, we do accessory scenes, those of the introduction not very readily believe that Shakspere and of the under-plot. Now, according to the would have taken the opposite course. Skiljust belief which has been raised upon the ful as he is in the introduction of his subjects, dissimilarities of style, Fletcher has not only in the preparation with which he brings the taken the under-plot, but all, or nearly all, mind into the proper state for comprehending the scenes that demanded the greatest and feeling the higher interests which are to amount of dramatic power, the exhibition of be developed, he comes, in almost every case, profound emotion in connection with nice with that decision which is a quality of the distinction of character. It was not the highest genius, to grapple with the passions poetical faculty alone that was here wanting, and characters of the agents who are to work -that power which Fletcher possessed of out the events; and when he has done this, expressing somewhat ordinary thoughts in and has our imaginations completely subequable and well-rounded verse, producing dued to his power, he delays or precipitates agreeable sensations, but rarely rising into the catastrophe,-sometimes lingering in the sublime or the pathetic, and never laying some scene of gentleness or repose to restore bare those hidden things in the nature of the balance of feeling, and to keep the tragic man which lie too deep for every-day philo- within the limits of pleasurable emotion,— sophy, but when revealed become truths that and sometimes clearing away by a sudden require no demonstration. Shakspere, on movement all the involutions of the plot, the contrary, according to the same just shedding his sunlight on all the darknesses belief as to the internal evidence of style, of character, and yet making this unexpected takes those parts which require the least dénouement the only one compatible with dramatic power,-the descriptive and di- truth and nature. It was out of Shakspere's dactic parts; those which, to a great extent, own power, we believe, because incompatible are of an epic character, containing, like a with those principles of art which were to poem properly epic, set and solemn speeches, him as an unerring instinct, to produce the elaborate narration, majestic invocations to last scenes of a play before he had worked the presiding deities. There can be no out the characterization which would essendoubt as to the high excellence of these por- tially determine the details of the event. tions of the work. But is such a division of The theory that Shakspere left a portion of labour the natural one between Shakspere 'The Two Noble Kinsmen,' which, after his and Fletcher? If it be said that Shakspere death, was completed by Fletcher, is one left portions of a posthumous play which which, upon a mature consideration of the Fletcher finished, we have the same objec-subject, we are constrained to reject, although it has often presented itself to us | pieces. If Shakspere had the capability of as the most plausible of the theories which would necessarily associate themselves with the belief that Shakspere had written a considerable portion of this play. altering his language so variously as we here see, yet he nowhere presents exaggerations of thought and feeling in soft and flowing speeches, which is the characteristic of Fletcher."* This is to mistake the question at issue. Nobody has ever supposed that Shakspere wrote the parts that are commonly assigned to Fletcher; and therefore nobody accused him of putting exaggerated thoughts in soft and flowing speeches. If Tieck, however, considers the scenes of the first act, to which he distinctly alludes, to be in Fletcher's natural and habitual manner, he maintains a theory which in our opinion is more untenable than any which has been proposed upon the question. Steevens holds that the play is for the most part a studied imi In his 'Specimens of English Dramatic Poets,' Charles Lamb selects from 'The Two Noble Kinsmen' nearly all the first scene of the first act, part of the scene between Emilia and Hippolyta in the same act, and the dialogue between Palamon and Arcite, before Emilia comes into the garden, in Act II. The latter scene he says "bears indubitable marks of Fletcher: the two which precede it give strong countenance to the tradition that Shakspere had a hand in this play." These and other passages, he adds, "have a luxuriance in them which strongly resembles Shakspere's manner in those parts of his playstation of Shakspere by Fletcher. But, if he where, the progress of the interest being subordinate, the poet was at leisure for description." Upon a principle, then, of arranged co-operation with Fletcher, Shakspere had produced only those parts of The Two Noble Kinsmen' in which the interest is subordinate, and which should resemble his manner when he was at leisure for description. This is the main point which, with every deference for the opinion, founded upon a comparison of style, that Shakspere was associated in this play with Fletcher, we venture to urge as evidence that ought to be impartially taken in support of the opinion that Shakspere was not concerned in it at all. Our own judgment, as far as the question of style is concerned, very nearly coincides with that of the author of the ingenious Letter' to which we have several times referred; but, on a careful examination of the whole question, we are inclined to a belief that Shakspere did not participate in the authorship. We do not, on the other hand, go along with Tieck, who, with somewhat of an excess of that boldness with which his countrymen pronounce opinions upon the niceties of style in a foreign language, says of this play, "I have never been able to convince myself that a single verse has been written by Shakspere. The manner, the language, the versification is as thoroughly Fletcher as any other of his has imitated style, he has also imitated Shakspere. 1 little beyond the character of a mere conjecture, not hurriedly adopted, but certainly propounded without any great confidence in its validity. We hold, then, that Fletcher, for the most part, wrote the scenes which the best critical opinions concur in attributing to him: we hold, also, that he had a coadjutor who produced for the most part the scenes attributed by the same authorities to Shakspere: but we hold, further, that this coadjutor was not Shakspere himself. Coleridge has thrown out a suggestion that parts of The Two Noble Kinsmen' might have been written by Jonson. He was probably led into this opinion by the classical tone which occasionally prevails, especially in the first scene, and in the invocations of the fifth act. The address to Diana, "Oh, sacred, shadowy, cold, and constant queen, Abandoner of revels, mute, contemplative, at once reminds us of Queen and huntress, chaste and fair:" more perhaps from the associations of the subject than from Jonson's manner of treating it. But Coleridge goes on to state that the main presumption for Shakspere's share in this play rests upon the construction of the blank verse. He holds that construction to be evidence either of an intentional imitation of Shakspere, or of his own proper hand. He then argues, from the assumption that Fletcher was the imitator, that there was an improbability that he would have been conscious of the inferiority of his own versification, which Coleridge calls "too poematic minus-dramatic." The improbability, then, that Fletcher imitated Shakspere in portions of the play, writing other portions in his own proper language and versification, throws the critic back upon the other conjecture, that Shakspere's own hand is to be found in it. But then again he says, "The harshness of many of these very passages, a harshness unrelieved by any lyrical inter-breathings, and still more the want of profundity in the thoughts, keep me from an absolute decision." We state these opinions of Coleridge with reference to what we must briefly call the style of the different parts, to show that any decision of the question founded mainly upon the style is not to be considered certain even within its own proper limits. We have rested our doubts principally upon another foundation; but, taken together, the two modes of viewing the question, whether as to style or dramatic structure, require that we should look out for another partner than Shakspere in producing this work in alliance with Fletcher. Coleridge appears to have thought the same when he threw out the name of Jonson; but we cannot conceive that, if he had pursued this inquiry analytically, he would have abided by this conjecture. Jonson's proper versification is more different from Shakspere's than perhaps that of any other of his contemporaries; and we doubt if his mind was plastic enough, or his temper humble enough, to allow him to become the imitator of any man. We request our readers to compare the following invocation by Jonson, from 'Cynthia's Revels,' with the invocation to Mars in the fifth act of The Two Noble Kinsmen;' and we think they will agree that the versification of Jonson, in a form in which both the specimens are undramatic, is essentially different : : "Phoebus Apollo, if, with ancient rites, Now thrive invention in this glorious court, Cynthia may grace, and give it life by sight." Here is no variety of pause; the couplet with which the speech concludes is not different from the pairs of blank-verse which in the descriptive and didactic, in passages which are less purely dramatic. Dramatic imitation was not his talent. He could not go out of himself, as Shakspeare could shift at pleasure, to inform and animate other have gone before, except in the rhyming of | perhaps approaches nearest to Shakspeare the tenth syllables. But there is another writer of that period who might have been associated with Fletcher in the production of a drama, and did participate in such stage partnerships: who, from some limited resemblances to Shakspere that we shall pre-existences, but in himself he had an eye to sently notice, might without any improbability be supposed to have written those portions of "The Two Noble Kinsmen' which are decidedly and essentially different from the style of Fletcher. We select, though probably not the best selection we could make, a passage of the same general character as the invocations so often mentioned, and which may be compared also with Jonson's address to Apollo. It is an invocation to Behemoth : "Terror of darkness! oh thou king of flames! That with thy music-footed horse dost strike The clear light out of crystal, on dark earth, And hurl'st instructive fire about the world, Wake, wake, the drowsy and enchanted night, perceive and a soul to embrace all forms. He would have made a great epic poet, if, indeed, he has not abundantly shown himself to be one; for his 'Homer' is not so properly a translation as the stories of Achilles and Ulysses re-written." Our theory is, that the passages which have been ascribed to Shakspere as a partner in the work of 'The Two Noble Kinsmen' are essentially "descriptive and didactic;" that to write these passages it was not necessary that the poet should be able to "go out of himself;" that they, for the most part, might enter into the composition of a great epic poem; that the writer of these passages was master, to a considerable extent, of Shakspere's style, especially in its conciseness That sleeps with dead eyes in this heavy and its solemnity, although he was ill fitted riddle: Oh, thou great prince of shades, where never sun to grapple with its more dramatic qualities of rapidity or abruptness; that also, unlike most of the writers of his day, who sought Sticks his far-darted beams, whose eyes are only to please, he indulged in the same dis made To shine in darkness, and see ever best Webster, in his dedication to Vittoria Corombona,' speaks of " that full and heightened style of Master Chapman," in the same sentence with "the laboured and understanding works of Master Jonson." It is in the "full and heightened style" that we shall seek resemblances to parts of The Two Noble Kinsmen,' rather than in the "laboured and understanding works." We are supported in this inquiry by the opinion of one of the most subtle and yet most sensible of modern critics, Charles Lamb:"Of all the English play-writers, Chapman position as Shakspere, to yield to the prevailing reflection which the circumstances of the scene were calculated to elicit; and, lastly, that his intimate acquaintance with the Greek poets fitted him to deal more especially with those parts of the tale of 'Palamon and Arcite' in which Chaucer, in common with all the middle-age poets, built a tale of chivalry upon a classical foundation. We can understand such a division of labour between Fletcher and Chapman, as that Fletcher should take the romantic parts of the story, as the knight-errantry, the love, the rivalry, the decision by bodily prowess,-and that Chapman should deal with Theseus and the Amazons, the lament of the three Queens, (which subject was familiar to him in 'The Seven against Thebes' of the Greek drama,) and the mythology which Chaucer had so elaborately sketched as the machinery of his great story. |
