Knight's store of knowledge for all readers: being a collection of treatises, in various departments of knowledge / by several authors.

Knight, Charles, 1791-1873

Date:: [1841]

Credit: Knight's store of knowledge for all readers: being a collection of treatises, in various departments of knowledge / by several authors. Source: Wellcome Collection.

24/406 (page 14)

$bctler fortune,■' hail then, as we believe, wrilteii Ibo finest de- scription of a horse in the English language:— , Iloimil liooril. uliort joinled, fetlocks slmg and long, llmad breiLst, hill eye, smnll head, niid nostril wide, High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing strong, 'riiin inane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide : Look, what a horse shonld bare he did not lack. Save a proud rider on so proud a back.”* At the door of the playhouse, having dcscrilied the horse, V/ill Sliaks|)ere was to make acquaintance with the proud riders of Elizabeth’s court; and from this experience he was aflerwarils to produce the celebrated jiassage of— ” I saw young Harry with his beaver on. His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd, Rise from the ground like feather’d Mercury, And vaulted with such case into his beat As if an angel dropp’d down from the clouds. To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, And witch the world with noble horsemanship.”t Steeveus objects to this suqiassing anecdote of the horse- holding, and to the statement which follows, that Shakspere “ hired hoys to wait mider his inspection,” and that, “ as long as the practice of riding to the playhouse continued, the waiters that held the horses retained the appellation of Shakspere's boys,”— he objects that the practice of riding to the playhouse never began, and was never continued, and that Shakspere could not have held horses at the ])layhonse-door because people went tliither by water. We believe there is a stronger objection still: until IVill Shakspere converted the English drama from a rude, tasteless, serai-baibarous entertainment, into a high intellectual feast for men of education and refinement, those who kept horses did not go to the public theatres at all. There were representations in the private houses of tlie great, which men of some wit and scholarship wrote, with a most tiresome profusion of unmeaning words, pointless incidents, .and vague characterization,—and these were called plays ; and there were “ storial shows” in the public theatres, to which the coarsest melodrama that is now exhibited at Bartholomew Fair would be as superior as Shakspere is superior to the highest among his contemporaries. But from 1580 to 1585, when Shakspere and Shakspere's boys are described as holding horses at the playhouse-door, it may be aIHrmed that the English drama, such as we now understand by the term, had to be created. We believe that Shakspere was in the most eminent degree its creator. He had, as we think, written his ‘ 't'enus and Ado- nis,’ perhaps in a fragmentary shape, before he left Stratford. It was first printed in 1593, and is dedicated to Lord South- ampton. The dedication is one of the few examples of Shak- spere mentioning a word of himself or his works :—“ I know not how I shall oITend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your Lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burthen : oidy if your Honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honourable survey, and your Honour to your heart's content; which I wish may always answer your own wish and the world's hopeful expectation.” The dedication is simple, and niaidy. In 1593, then, Shakspere had an employment—a recognised speaks of “ idle hours ” to be devoted to poetry. He calls this poem, too, “the first heir of my invention.” if it “ prove deftirmed” he will “ never after car (plough) so barren a land. ’ W ill he give up writing for the stage then ? It is a remarkable proof of the low reputation of the drama that even the great dramatic works whicli .Shaks{>erc had unques- tionably produced in 1593 were not here alluded to. The drama scarcely then aspired to the character of ]xx-try. The “some graver labour” which he contemplated was another • Venus niij Adunis. t Henry IV., Part 1. I poem ; and he did |jrodiic€ aitodicr flie next year, which lie also dedicated to the same friend, 'iliiswas the ‘ Haj>eof Luerece/ Perhaps these poems wiTe piiUished to vindicate his reputation as a writer against the jealousies of some of tlie contemporary draiiialiifs. Hut we still think that he used Uie term first heir of my invention’' in its literal sense; and that ‘ Venus and Adonis’—or at least a sketch of it—was the first \iro- diictiun of his imagination, his inveiiticHj. It bears every mark of a youthful comi>osition; it would liave Ixren more easily produced by the SIiak8)>erc of eighteen or twenty than any of his earliest dramas. He liad models of such writing as tlie * ^ enus and Adonis l>efure him. Chaucer he must have diligently studied; Sj>ciuer had jiubUshed. his ‘Sbeplierd’s Calendar,' his Hyiniis to Love and Ueauty, and otiier jioems, when Shaksi>ere’8 genius was budding amidst bis native fields. But when he wrote ‘ Henry VI.' orthe first * Hamlet,’ where couhl he seek for models of dramatic blatik verse, of natural dialogue, ! of strong and consistent character ? He had to work without models; and this was the real “ graver labour” of hU early manhood. Our belief has been repeatedly expressed, durmg the pub- lication of ‘The Pictorial Kdition of Sliakipere,* Oiat lh«* great poet became a writer for the stage at a much earlier period than has been usually determined. Our geoeral rtasiiui for this opinion were formed, upon the publication of tbe first play in tliat edition ; and we have seen no ev idence which can induce us to depart from it. Up to the period when Shak- spere reached the age of manhood there were no writers in existence competent to produce a play which can be called a work of art. The state of the drania generally is thus succiuctl v, but most correctly, noticed by a recent anouy'mous writer:— “ From the commencement of Shakspere’s boyhood, till al>out the earliest date at which his removal to Loudon can be jjossi- bly' fixed, the drama lingered in tlie last stage of a semi-bar- barism. Perhaps we do not possess any monument of the time except Whetstone’s ‘Promos and Cassandra;' but neither lliat play, nor any details that can be gathered respecting otliers, indicate the slightest advance deyoud a point of development which had been reached many years before bv such writers as Edwards and Gascoyne. About 1585, or Shakspere's twentv first year, tliere opened a new era, which, before the same dccad was closed, had given birth to a large number of dramas, many of them wonderful for the circumstances in which they arose, and several possessing real and absolute excellence.* Of tbe poets which belong to this remarkable decad we possess luidoubted specimens of the works of Lyly, Peele, Marlowe, Lodge, Greene, Kyd, and Nashe. lliere are one or two other inferior names, such as Chettle and JIumlay, comiected with the latter part of this decad. M e ourselves hold tliat SliaksjieFe belongs to tbe first as well as to Uie second half of this short but most influen- tial jieriod of our literature. But tlie critics and comnientaturs apjxMT to liave agreed tliat Shakspere, whose mental powers were bestowed upon him in the extremest prodigality of Nature, was of wouderfully slow growtli towards a capacity for intellectual produciiott. They have all amuseil themselves with imagining his careful progress, from holding horsi‘s at tlie playhouse- door, to tlic greater dignity of a candle-snufler witliin its walls, till in some lucky hour, when his genius was growing vigor- ous—tliat is, at the age of twentj--seven—he producerl a play. They have little doubt that Sliaksiwre was in Ixwidoii, aiul connected witli Uic theatre, as early as 1581; but then be bad been a deer-stcaler, and had seven years of jimbation to un- dergo! There was nothing cxlraonUnary in Ben Jonson writing for tlio stage when he was only nineteen; but then Shttksi>ere, you know, was an untutored genius, &c. &c.! A great deal of this monstrous trasli has lieen swejit away l»v the exertions of agenllenian equally distinguished for Ins acuteness and liis industn-. It lias hven discovered hy Mr. Collier that in 1580, when Simk.s|x*rc was only twenty-five, he was a joint proprietor in the Blackfriars Tlieatre, with a fourth of the other proprietors below iiim in the list. He luul, at twenty-five a • KUili, Ueview, July, 1840, p. 4C0.$