mistic view of the world. This is shown by the view of essential original human nature, with its vices, given in Caliban; a portraiture marvellously resembling in several respects the picture which Swift gives of the Yahoos of Honyhnhnm-land.1

In accepting in the main Hallam's opinion with regard to the period of gloom in Shakespeare's history-an opinion which, as to indications of time and otherwise, agrees exceedingly well with the facts of the Sonnets—we should beware of over-stating the case with respect to the commencement of this period. Traces, more or less clear, of a pessimistic view of things may be detected even in Shakespeare's earliest works. Thus, of that "first heir of his invention," Venus and Adonis, Dr. Furnivall says:-"Two lines there are, reflecting Shakspere's own experience of life-his own early life in London possibly-which we must not fail to note; they are echoed in Hamlet :

For misery is trodden on by many,

And being low, never reliev'd by any'

(Introd. to Leopold Shakspere, p. xxx.).

These lines, however, are by no means the only expression of a pessimistic tendency to be found in Venus and Adonis. There is the discourse of Venus with regard to the preponderant evils of love, towards the close of the poem; and a few stanzas on from the lines just quoted there is the description of terrible diseases to which man is subject :"As burning fevers, agues pale and faint, Life-poisoning pestilence and frenzies wood, The marrow-eating sickness, whose attaint Disorder breeds, by heating of the blood:

Surfeits, imposthumes, grief, and damn'd despair,

Swear Nature's death, for framing thee so fair" (ll. 739-744). Much might be similarly adduced from Lucrece. But to give only two stanzas :—

1 This subject was discussed by me before the New Shakspere Society. See Proceedings of that Society for 1887.

"Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud?
Or hateful cuckoo hatch in sparrows' nests?
Or toads infect fair founts with venom mud?
Or tyrant folly lurk in gentle breasts?

Or kings be breakers of their own behests?

But no perfection is so absolute,

That some impurity doth not pollute" (11. 848-854).

The patient dies while the physician sleeps;
The orphan pines while the oppressor feeds;
Justice is feasting while the widow weeps;
Advice is sporting while infection breeds :
Thou grant'st no time for charitable deeds:

Wrath, envy, treason, rape, and murder's rages,

The heinous hours wait on them as their pages" (11. 904-910).

This last stanza, incriminating "Opportunity," adumbrates the pessimism of Sonnet 66. Here, too, as in some other parts of the poem, we seem to have almost a prophecy of the denunciations in Lear.

Of Shakespeare's early comedy, Love's Labour's Lost, Dowden remarks (Shakspere Primer, p. 64), that, “with its apparent lightness, there is a serious spirit underlying the play." The sportive Berowne is dismissed to "jest a twelvemonth in an hospital,”

"Visit the speechless sick, and still converse

With groaning wretches;"

"To move wild laughter in the throat of death."

This passage, and that previously quoted from the Venus and Adonis, may suggest the possibility that in early life, under circumstances now unknown, Shakespeare witnessed examples of the effects of disease so terrible as to produce a deep and enduring effect on his mind.

The fact, at any rate, is apparent that, whether from the melancholy associated with genius, or from whatever other cause, though the gloom of the Sonnets was deepened by special influences, the same tendency of mind is discernible throughout Shakespeare's literary career, as also it is imprinted on the most strongly certified of all the alleged

portraits of Shakespeare, the Droeshout engraving in the First Folio. Of the Shakespeare of this engraving, as compared with the Shakespeare of the Sonnets, Dr. Furnivall remarks:-"In the Sonnets we have the gentle Will, the melancholy mild-eyed man of the Droeshout portrait. Shakespeare's tender, sensitive, refined nature is seen clearly here (i.e., in the Sonnets), but through a glass darkly in the plays" (Introd. to Leopold Shakspere, p. lxiv.).1

1 Mr. G. Bernard Shaw, in a paper on Troilus and Cressida, read some time ago before the New Shakspere Society, adduced several instances of Shakespeare's displaying a pessimistic tendency or portraying pessimism in certain of his earlier plays. Some of these may be here noted.

In the Two Gentlemen of Verona (Act v. sc. 4) "an ordinary friend is described as one that's without faith or love."

"In the Comedy of Errors Antipholus speaks of his

'earthly gross conceit

Smothered in errors, feeble, shallow, weak'" (Act iii. sc. 2).

Romeo anticipates the fatalism of ""Tis paltry to be Cæsar; not being Fortune, he's but Fortune's knave" (Antony and Cleopatra, Act v. sc. 2), by exclaiming, "I am Fortune's fool" (Romeo and Juliet, Act iii. sc. 1). "Richard II. gives a strong indication of the direction in which Shakespeare's mind was travelling. He says,

'Whatever I be,

Nor I, nor any man, that but man is

With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased
By being nothing'" (Act v. sc. 5).

"King Henry IV., speaking of the future, exclaims,—

'Oh, if this were seen,

The happiest youth, seeing his progress through,
What perils past, what crosses to ensue,

Would shut the book, and sit him down and die'

(Part 2, Act. iii. sc. 1).

When it came to this, Troilus and Cressida was evidently not far off."

CHAPTER XV.

SHAKESPEARE'S SCHOLARSHIP.

In relation to the Sonnets, Shakespeare's scholarship scarcely requires more than slight treatment. Of course, in Sonnet 78, where Shakespeare speaks of himself as dumb, and contrasts his rude and heavy ignorance with the grace and majesty of the learned Chapman, the expressions so employed need not be taken quite literally, though still there can be no doubt that Shakespeare's scholarship would not have borne comparison with that of the translator of Homer. Probably in the Stratford grammar school he had been pretty well drilled in Lily's Latin Grammar, and very likely he had read some portions of Ovid in the original, notwithstanding the use he afterwards made of Golding's translation. Perhaps he had little or no general acquaintance with Horace. The quotation or allusion in Sonnet 55 can be satisfactorily accounted for, as we have seen (supra, p. 19), without such acquaintance. The relation between the Comedy of Errors and the Menæchmi of Plautus it is not necessary here to discuss at length. It appears improbable that Shakespeare should have read in the original so difficult an author as Plautus; but, in view of known facts, the problem need not be very perplexing.1 And, though Shakespeare may not have been entirely ignorant of Greek, it seems in no way likely that Sonnets 153 and 154 are versions made by him from the original as given in the

1 Warner's translation was published in 1595, and the suggestion which has been made that Shakespeare had seen this in MS. is possible, or he may have received assistance privately from some unknown scholar.

Anthology. From there being two versions of the fable, it would seem to have greatly interested Shakespeare, but what translation he employed has not been ascertained.1

In Sonnets 46, 87, 134, and elsewhere, there is a use of legal phraseology which it is perhaps best to ascribe to close observation of what was going on around rather than to Shakespeare's having obtained temporary employment in a lawyer's office.

1 Latin translations had appeared on the Continent, though not, so far as is known, in England. Cf. Hertzberg, Shakespeare Jahrbuch, 1878, pp. 161, 162.