Tried by the test of originality, neither the French nor the Romans had any national theatre. Both nations imitated the Greeks. Both nations were inferior to their originals. So far as mere diction is concerned, surely nothing can be more perfect than the plays of Racine. They are exquisite productions. But when we look for something more, when we look for some original intellectual creations, when we look for a just and true picture of the men and times which these plays profess to delineate, we are obliged to confess ourselves disappointed. His plays are principally founded on classical subjects. He seems to have thought it barbarous to write on subjects upon which the Greeks had not touched. And yet his best plays are those in which he has had the courage to trust to his own powers. Britannicus and Athalie are infinitely superior to Les Freres Ennemis and Iphigénie. Nothing can better illustrate the difference between the correct and the incorrect school of dramatists, between those who prided themselves in conforming to arbitrary rules, and those who followed the eternal principles of nature than a comparison between Racine's Iphigénie, and Shakespeare's Troilus_and Cressida. Both of these plays are historical. Both of them treat of the same period, and have the same heroes. Racine's play is full of beautiful poetry and fine passages of rhetoric. But we see that it would have been just as good if any other men had been introduced instead of the Greek heroes. There is no picture of life or manners; we do not sympathise with his characters, for they are not human beings. They are mere names prefixed to long passages of rhetorical declamation. Many of the finest passages are translations from Euripedes; and this Racine acknowledges in his preface. He also congratulates the French people that their taste should so much resemble that of the Athenians. The play then proceeds in a stately herioc style. Agammemnon is very dignified, Ulysses is very dignified, Achilles is very dignified, every actor in the play speaks eloquently and nobly, their sentiments are

the sentiments of persons who had been educated with the greatest care, in the highest state of cultivation, and with the most exquisite politeness: Agammemnon speaks as Louis XIV. spoke, and his friends talk in the same strain as the courtiers at Versailles.

In Troilus and Cressida we see Achilles lolling in his tent, laughing at the mimicry of Patroclus; Ajax blustering, boasting, and strutting about; Agammemnon proud and overbearing; Thersites railing at everything. The heroes of Greece certainly lose much of their dignity; but they become human beings. We see that the world then was the same as it now is; that in the Grecian camp, as in England, there were jealousies, rivalries, and contentions. We see that the Grecian heroes were men of the same flesh and blood as ourselves; that they were proud, haughty, deceitful: and that they had the same passions, follies, vices, and crimes, as the men whom we every day meet in the Strand. In Troilus and Cressida there are indeed some chronological errors which there are not in Iphigènie; but as a representation of human life, Shakspeare's play is infinitely superior to that of the eloquent and accomplished Frenchman. In Troilus and Cressida there are some allusions which the highly polished French audience would have considered indelicate, and many which they would have considered vulgar; but a healthy morality pervades the whole play, a healthy morality which is a far surer index of virtue than the fastidious pruriency of some other writers, and a sympathy for the feelings and thoughts of all classes of society, to be called vulgar only by those who have, during their whole lives, breathed the atmosphere of courts.

In all Shakspeare's plays there is a wildness and irregularity which are not to be met with in the mellifluent pages of Racine. But it is the nature of everything great, in the natural and moral word, to appear rude and irregular when surveyed by common eyes. A great naturalist has said that the hills and valleys, the mountains and plains, which give to the surface of

the earth, when surveyed by its inhabitants, such a rough and disordered appearance, would, if looked at from a proper distance by another race of beings, appear as smooth as a piece of paper. And if Shakspeare's wildness and irregularity be judged not by the artificial rules of a single generation, but by the eternal principles of nature, they may then appear beauty and harmony. All the great productions of nature have a grandeur and magnificence which defy ordinary laws. A gentle stream running in its prescribed course is beautiful : but can it be compared for beauty to the waters of the Mississippi? An ornamental flower garden with its walks and borders laid out with skill is beautiful; but can it be compared for beauty to the forests of the Ohio? A sparkling waterfall is beautiful; but can it be compared for beauty to the cataracts of Niagara? An English landscape is beautiful; but can it be compared for beauty to the rugged mountains of Switzerland? The common drayhorse will obey the rein; will the mighty lord of the forest? The swan will keep near the earth; will the eagle be prevented from soaring into the skies? Common minds are content to be entangled in the cobwebs of the schoolmen; were they sufficient to restrain the intellect of the great master of inductive philosophy? Common generals were content to follow the prescribed rules of tactics; were they obeyed by the hero of Austerlitz? Common dramatists keep the unities of place and time; are they to shackle the genius of the author of Othello?

A great genius is not to be considered a barbarian because he does not obey the rules which are sufficient for ordinary minds. În literature as well as in politics and religion there are temporary fashions; but the great eternal principles remain after all the ebb and flow of popular opinion. Shakspeare's historical plays follow these eternal principles; and by these eternal principles, not by the narrow rules of the pedant, ought they to be estimated.

Shakspeare's object in the revive and to vivify the past.

historical plays was to He was not blinded by

the mists that time gathers round the dead. By the light of his genius the darkest part of our history became again luminous. The hero was raised from his grave, the monarch awoke from his slumbers, the lover was again enamoured, the beauty was again coy, and hard to please. These plays are Shakspeare's History of England. They are histories, not as history has often been written, like an old almanack, but real living breathing history. And they certainly give us a much more correct idea of English history than the laborious volumes from which he derived his materials.

He seems to have studied with great diligence the old English writers; and when it is appropriate, even follows Holinshed so closely as actually to introduce speeches into his plays as they are in the old author's work. He, of course, takes the liberty of moulding the facts of history to suit his purpose; but he always gives a true picture of the times which he delineates. If he is not so correct in giving minute events as the old chroniclers, he gives us a far better general idea. The accuracy of the old chroniclers is that of a map. Shakespeare gives us a painting. In the painting we do not find all the small divisions and boundaries that are in the map; but it gives us a far better general idea of the country.

Shakspeare's English historical plays, King John, Richard II., Henry IV., Henry V., Henry VI., Richard III., and Henry VIII., were all founded on some old plays on the same subjects. And as his audience had been accustomed to see these performed, and perhaps would have been displeased to see any great deviation from the history, as they had been accustomed to see it, represented, he was obliged to follow the inaccuracies of the old plays. This seems the most satisfactory way of accounting for Shakspeare's chronological errors. It certainly is a much more satisfactory supposition than to accuse the man, who has painted all these old times in such true and brilliant colours, of gross ignorance.

It is not necessary here to discuss the question whether

Shakspeare was an educated or uneducated man. His ignorance has never yet been proved by any satisfactory evidence; and the strongest evidence would scarcely be sufficient to falsify the testimony which his own works present. It is certain that his early plays were all founded on classical subjects. It is certain that he had, in general, a vivid and correct idea of Greek and Roman history. It is certain, from his works, that his knowledge of both ancient and modern history, of all the subjects that were then considered necessary for a man of education, was most extensive. It is certain that he had reflected deeply on all the great mysteries of human life, and that in deep, and true, and searching philosophy, he has surpassed every writer, ancient modern. These are not assertions, they are facts. Inaccuracies and chronological errors doubtless there are in the historical plays: but it is not the duty of the dramatist to be a chronologist. It is his duty to represent not only what is true, but what his audience believe to be true. And it does not follow even in those passages of Shakspeare's historical plays which every one admits to be incorrect, that he erred from ignorance.

or

Ben Jonson's assertion, that Shakspeare had little Latin and less Greek, has often been triumphantly quoted as an incontestable proof of the great dramatist's want of learning. But it is easy to account for Ben Jonson's words, without admitting that Shakspeare was an ignorant man. Most of Jonson's plays, in their subjects, at least, are copies of the ancient dramas. He was always ready to display his learning. His writings show that he was by no means free from pedantry. Men · are very generally disposed to estimate others by their own standard of excellence. And Ben appears to have believed that no plays could be excellent unless the author's Latin and Greek were as ostentatiously displayed in them, as they were in his own pompous dramas. And thus, though a friend of Shakspeare, and in some respects his sincere admirer, he seems never to have comprehended the immeasureable gulf that separated the author of the Alchemist from the author of