old age; let us respect all so long as their conduct entitles them to that respect, and value opinions according to their own merit. C
⁂ We think, with our correspondent, that the aged often assume too much on the score of their superiority of knowledge. When they do so, they surely refute their pretensions by the very fact of doing it. On the other hand, it is no unreasonable assumption, to take for granted that, in proportion to men’s experience, they are generally better informed. The great point is, to arrogate on neither side; to listen to the old with respect, and the young with complacency.
CHARACTERS OF SHAKSPEARE’S PLAYS.
BY WILLIAM HAZLITT.
NO. XXIV.—THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.
This is little more than the first outlines of a comedy loosely sketched in. It is the story of a novel dramatised with very little labour or pretension; yet there are passages of high poetical spirit, and of inimitable quaintness of humour, which are undoubtedly Shakspeare’s, and there is throughout the conduct of the fable, a careless grace and felicity which marks it for his. One of the editors (we believe, Mr Pope) remarks in a marginal note to the ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona’—“It is observable (I know not for what cause) that the style of this comedy is less figurative, and more natural and unaffected than the greater part of this author’s, though supposed to be one of the first he wrote.” Yet so little does the editor appear to have made up his mind upon this subject, that we find the following note to the very next (the second) scene. “This whole scene, like many others in these plays (some of which I believe were written by Shakspeare, and others interpolated by the players), is composed of the lowest and most trifling conceits, to be accounted for only by the gross taste of the age he lived in: Populo ut placerent. I wish I had authority to leave them out, but I have done all I could, set a mark of reprobation upon them, throughout this edition.” It is strange that our fastidious critic should fall so soon from praising to reprobating. The style of the familiar parts of this comedy is indeed made up of conceits—low they may be for what we know, but then they are not poor, but rich ones. The scene of Launce with his dog (not that in the second, but that in the fourth act) is a perfect treat in the way of farcical drollery and invention; nor do we think Speed’s manner of proving his master to be in love deficient in wit or sense, though the style may be criticised as not simple enough for the modern taste.
Valentine. Why, how know you that I am in love?
Speed. Marry, by these special marks: first, you have learned, like Sir Protheus, to wreathe your arms like a mal-content, to relish a love-song like a robin-red-breast, to walk alone like one that had the pestilence, to sigh like a school-boy that had lost his A B C, to weep like a young wench that had lost her grandam, to fast like one that takes diet, to watch like one that fears robbing, to speak puling like a beggar at Hallowmas. You were wont, when you laughed, to crow like a cock; when you walked, to walk like one of the lions; when you fasted, it was presently after dinner; when you looked sadly, it was for want of money; and now you are metamorphosed with a mistress, that when I look on you, I can hardly think you my master.
The tender scenes in this play, though not so highly wrought as in some others, have often much sweetness of sentiment and expression. There is something pretty and playful in the conversation of Julia with her maid, when she shows such a disposition to coquetry about receiving the letter from Protheus; and her behaviour afterwards and her disappointment, when she finds him faithless to his vows, remind us at a distance of Imogen’s tender constancy. Her answer to Lucetta, who advises her against following her lover in disguise, is a beautiful piece of poetry.
Lucetta. I do not seek to quench your love’s hot fire,
But qualify the fire’s extremest rage,
Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.
Julia. The more thou damm’st it up, the more it burns;
The current that with gentle murmur glides,
Thou know’st, being stopp’d, impatiently doth rage;
But when his fair course is not hindered,
He makes sweet music with th’ enamell’d stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
He overtaketh in his pilgrimage.
And so by many winding nooks he strays,
With willing sport, to the wild ocean.[1]
Then let me go, and hinder not my course;
I’ll be as patient as a gentle stream,
And make a pastime of each weary step,
Till the last step have brought me to my love;
And there I’ll rest, as after much turmoil,
A blessed soul doth in Elysium.
If Shakspeare indeed had written only this and other passages in the ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona,’ he would almost have deserved Milton’s praise of him—
“And sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy’s child,
Warbles his native wood-notes wild.”
But as it is, he deserves rather more praise than this.
THE SPIRIT’S SUMMONS.
FROM THE GERMAN OF APEL.
(For the London Journal.)
A beautiful Spring day had tempted Julia and her friends to enter into the open air. “What a pity that our Antonia cannot accompany us!” cried she at every new discovered charm with which reviving Nature met her eye. “She is over careful of herself;” said Meta, “Who could be injured by the noble and refreshing breezes of Spring? As for myself, I regard Spring in the light of a cheerful youth, a kind of Cupid, but not so fantastical or so artful; on the contrary, fresh and joyous from the very depths of his heart. Tell me, would a violet, or even a humble crocus bloom, if it coddled itself up in this manner? I am right,—am I not, Grünewald?”
“One plant is earlier than another, Mamsell,” replied the gardener; “For example, were I to take an orange-tree from the conservatory before St Pancras or St Sewatius’ day, I should meet with sorry success. Even now, many a crocus is frozen by the coldness of the nights, while an adonis endures frost and snow, and blooms among them with increased vigour.”
The young ladies laughed. “There’s a lecture for you,” said Julia. “I will tell it to Antonia, who keeps her Adonis much too warm.”
“That is unnecessary,” continued the gardener, still misunderstanding; “it will soon wither, if it is too closely tended.”
“To speak seriously,” said Julia; as she walked on, “I think Antonia has rather stopped at home on account of her whimsical lover, than by reason of her head-ache, though she certainly does belong to the number of those tender flowers who cannot venture into the world without the special protection of two Saints. The gentleman may be gallant enough, but he does not understand the treatment of a being so delicate as Antonia.”
“He should not be my husband,” added Cecilia; “I cannot make out why Antonia cleaves to him in the manner she does.”
“They both cause me many an uneasy moment,” returned Julia. “I would wager that Antonia does not love him, and that her fanciful resignation is no more than an overstraining of her feelings. She forces herself to this love, and I can foresee no issue but a sorrowful one to such a connexion.”
“But who compels her?” asked Meta. “It is her own choice, is it not?”
“She is certainly not compelled by any one,” replied Julia with a sigh—“but does compulsion only take place when one is teased by a father or a guardian? You both know Antonia as well as I? She feels herself bound to Normann because she thinks she must love him, because she once loved him, or, perhaps rather, because she fancied so.”
“I thought,” said Cecilia, “that she had given a promise to that effect to a person on his death-bed.”
“And that was the case,” said Julia; “but as I well know, even this was unnecessary; for had it not been so, she would still have felt herself bound to Normann. She fancies that by her hasty inclination towards him, she committed a crime against her first love, which must now be atoned for by a lasting and patient attachment.”
“But you must confess,” interrupted Meta, impatiently, “that Antonia drives these fancies much too far. No man can desire such sacrifices as she makes. Who could wish that on account of a transient inclination which she has felt towards a man, she should resign herself to him, and thus waste away her youth, her gaiety, and, in short, her whole life? I could not remain in her situation. With a hearty resolution, I would soon free myself.”
“We could all do it, dear Meta,” returned Julia, “provided we could be in Antonia’s situation, without, at the same time, being Antonia herself. Besides, consider that it is probable that our situations are formed according to ourselves, and that, therefore, it might be impossible for us to be in Antonia’s situation, and to act according to our own characters and dispositions. What the gardener said just now, respecting the flowers, is the case also with us. ‘Were I a rose,’ perhaps the crocus thinks, ‘in the first days of spring I would rival the apple blossoms;’ yet, if it were a rose, it would act as a rose, and conceal its tender buds. I feel that I could not act like Antonia, but I can appreciate the tenderness of her disposition.—Yes, I know that if I called her extremely amiable, I should yet say far too little. Her character is the living tone of an harmonicon. I would not have every instrument an harmonicon;[2] but, nevertheless, is not that instrument excellent to the highest degree—nay, almost unearthly?”
“This is the cause of Antonia playing the harmonicon in so heavenly a style,” said Alicia; “yet she plays it but seldom now. I think I have not heard a tune from her in a year.”
“Nor I, either,” remarked Julia; “nor, indeed, any one else. Since the death of her Ewald, it is in vain I ask her for the least song. She always puts me off with promises that I shall again hear her play, but yet she always defers it from one time to another. Lately, I wished her to play a passage which I could not master, but even that was refused.”
“Perchance it makes her too, melancholy,” said Cecilia. “I always avoid speaking to her of Ewald; notwithstanding, I am utterly unacquainted with the nature of that connexion. You can give us some explanation, Julia; at least, if it be no secret.”
“Ewald,” began Julia, “was, according to my views, a man as unfit for Antonia as Normann. He resembled her more in tenderness, but he wanted that firmness by which such an etherial being as Antonia should be supported, in order to be happy; and this very want caused the unhappy turn in her fate. They were enamoured of each other, I might say, not as human beings, but as spirits, and they carried their feelings and fancy to such a pitch, that Ewald, at least, to whom, perhaps, this exaltation was not so natural as to Antonia, at times seemed to become giddy. At this period, Normann, Ewald’s university friend, first knew Antonia, and this acquaintance was soon followed by the most ardent love on his part. Antonia, perhaps, might have felt a transient inclination towards Normann, while she lived, but too much, in Ewald; and I am convinced that what she felt for the former was no more than friendship and esteem, which, indeed, none can deny to his firm and decided character. Ewald soon became aware of Normann’s love; he even fancied that he could discern in Antonia a secret passion for the latter; and under the influence of exaggerated feelings, which were heightened by an illness, he resolved to renounce his beloved in favour of his friend. He wrote a most fantastical letter to both, then lost his senses, and probably hastened his end by the immoderate use of violent remedies. Both Antonia and Normann were present at his death, and on this occasion the expiring man, perhaps with consciousness, perhaps inspired by a delirious fancy, joined their hands, then asked Antonia for a song on the harmonicon, and while she was playing he breathed his last. Hence, from that time,
