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'As You Like It.'

Verges, is wholly original; but the sombre story of Hero and Claudio, about which the comic incident revolves, is traceable to an Italian source. Bandello had first narrated the sad experiences of the heroine, whom he christened Fenicia, in his 'Novelle' (No. xxii.); Bandello's version was translated in Belleforest's 'Histoires Tragiques,' and Ariosto grafted it on his 'Orlando Furioso' (canto v.). Ariosto's rendering of the story, in which the injured heroine is called Ginevra and her lover Ariodante, was dramatised in England long before Shakespeare designed his comedy. According to the accounts of the Court revels, 'A Historie of Ariodante and Ginevra was shown before her Majestie on Shrovetuesdaie at night' in 1583. In 1591 Ariosto's account was turned into English by Sir John Harington in his spirited translation of 'Orlando Furioso.' Either the dramatised 'Historie' (which has not survived in print or manuscript) or Harington's verse may be regarded as the immediate source of the serious plot of 'Much Ado.' Throughout the play Shakespeare blended with a convincing naturalness the serious aspects of humanity, which the Italian story suggested, and the ludicrous aspects, which he wholly illustrated by incident of his own invention. The popular comic actor William Kemp filled the rôle of Dogberry, and Cowley appeared as Verges. In both the Quarto in 1600 and the Folio of 1623 these actors' names are prefixed by a copyist's error to some of the speeches allotted to the two characters (act IV., scene ii.).

'As You Like It,' which quickly followed, is a dramatic adaptation of Lodge's romance, 'Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie' (1590), but Shakespeare added three new characters of first-rate interest - Jaques, the meditative cynic; Touchstone, the most carefully elaborated of all Shakespeare's fools; and the hoyden Audrey. Hints for the scene of Orlando's encounter with Charles the Wrestler, and for Touchstone's description of the diverse shapes of a lie, were clearly drawn from a book called 'Saviolo's Practise,' a manual of the art of self-defence, which appeared in 1595 from the pen of Vincentio Saviolo, an Italian fencing-master in the service of the Earl of Essex. None of Shakespeare's comedies breathes a more placid temper or approaches more nearly to a pastoral drama. Yet there is no lack of intellectual or poetic energy in the enunciation of the contemplative philosophy which is cultivated in the

Forest of Arden. In Rosalind, Celia, Phœbe, and Audrey four types of youthful womanhood are contrasted with the liveliest humour.

The date of 'Twelfth Night' is probably 1600, and its name, which has no reference to the story, doubtless commemorates the fact that it was designed for a Twelfth Night celebration. 'The new map with the augmentation of the Indies,' spoken of by Maria (III. ii. 86), was a respectful reference to the great map of the world or 'hydrographical description' which was first issued with Hakluyt's 'Voyages,' in 1599 or 1600, and first disclosed the full extent of recent explorations of the 'Indies' in the New World and the Old. Like the 'Comedy of Errors,' 'Twelfth Night' achieved the distinction, early in its career, of a presentation at an Inn of Court. It was produced at Middle Temple Hall on February 2, 1601-2, and Manningham, a barrister who was present, described the performance. Manningham wrote that the piece was 'much like the "Comedy of Errors" or "Menechmi" in Plautus, but most like and neere to that in Italian called "Inganni." Two sixteenth-century Italian plays entitled 'Gl' Inganni' ('The Cheats'), and a third called 'Gl' Ingannati' ('The Dupes '), bear resemblance to 'Twelfth Night.' It is just possible that Shakespeare had recourse to the last, which was based on Bandello's novel of Nicuola, and, being first published at Siena in 1538, became popular throughout Italy. But in all probability he drew the story solely from the 'Historie of Apolonius and Silla,' which was related in 'Riche his Farewell to Militarie Profession' (1581). The author of that volume, Barnabe Riche, translated the tale either direct from Bandello's Italian novel or from the French rendering of Bandello's work in Belleforest's 'Histoires Tragiques.' Romantic pathos, as in 'Much Ado,' is the dominant note of the main plot of 'Twelfth Night,' but Shakespeare neutralises the tone of sadness by his mirthful portrayal of Malvolio, Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Fabian, the clown Feste, and Maria, all of whom are his own creations. The ludicrous gravity of Malvolio proved exceptionally popular on the stage.

In 1601 Shakespeare made a new departure by drawing a plot from North's noble translation of 'Plutarch's Lives. Plutarch is the king of biographers, and the deference which Shakespeare paid his work by adhering to the phraseology wherever it was practicable illustrates his literary discrimina

Twelfth

Night.'

Julius Cæsar,' 1601.

tion.

On Plutarch's lives of Julius Cæsar, Brutus, and Antony, Shakespeare based his historical tragedy of 'Julius Cæsar.' Weever, in 1601, in his 'Mirror of Martyrs,' plainly refers to the masterly speech in the Forum at Cæsar's funeral which Shakespeare first put into Antony's mouth. There is no suggestion of the speech in Plutarch; hence the composition of 'Julius Cæsar' may be held to have preceded the issue of Weever's book in 1601. The general topic was already familiar on the stage. Polonius told Hamlet how, when he was at the university, he 'did enact Julius Cæsar; he was kill'd in the Capitol: Brutus kill'd him.' A play of the same title was known as early as 1589, and was acted in 1594 by Shakespeare's company. Shakespeare's piece is a penetrating study of political life, and, although the murder and funeral of Cæsar form the central episode and not the climax, the tragedy is thoroughly well planned and balanced. Cæsar is ironically depicted in his dotage. The characters of Brutus, Antony, and Cassius, the real heroes of the action, are exhibited with faultless art. The fifth act, which presents the battle of Philippi in progress, proves ineffective on the stage, but the reader never relaxes his interest in the fortunes of the vanquished Brutus, whose death is the catastrophe.

While 'Julius Cæsar' was winning its first laurels on the stage, the fortunes of the London theatres were menaced by two manifestations of unreasoning prejudice on the part of the public. The earlier manifestation, although speciously the more serious, was in effect innocuous. The puritans of the city of London had long agitated for the suppression of all theatrical performances, and it seemed as if the agitators triumphed when they induced the Privy Council on June 22, 1600, to issue to the officers of the Corporation of London and to the justices of the peace of Middlesex and Surrey an order forbidding the maintenance of more than two playhouses- one in Middlesex (Alleyn's newly erected playhouse, the 'Fortune' in Cripplegate) and the other in Surrey (the 'Globe' on the Bankside). The contemplated restriction would have deprived very many actors of employment, and driven others to seek a precarious livelihood in the provinces. Happily, disaster was averted by the failure of the municipal authorities and the magistrates of Surrey and Middlesex to make the order operative. All the London theatres that were already in existence went on their way unchecked.

More calamitous was a temporary reverse of fortune which Shakespeare's company, in common with the other companies of adult actors, suffered soon afterwards at the hands, not of fanatical enemies of the drama, but of playgoers who were its avowed supporters. The company of boy-actors, chiefly recruited from the choristers of the Chapel Royal, and known as 'the Children of the Chapel,' had since 1597 been installed at the new theatre in Blackfriars, and after 1600 the fortunes of the veterans, who occupied fival stages, were put in jeopardy by the extravagant outburst of public favour that the boys' performance evoked. In 'Hamlet' (II. ii. 348-94), the play which followed 'Julius Cæsar,' Shakespeare pointed out the perils of the situation. The adult actors, Shakespeare asserted, were prevented from performing in London through no falling off in their efficiency, but by the 'late innovation' or 'novelty' of the children's vogue. They were compelled to go on tour in the provinces, at the expense of their revenues and reputation, because 'an aery [i.e. nest] of children, little eyases. [i.e. young hawks],' dominated the theatrical world, and monopolised public applause. 'These are now the fashion,' the dramatist lamented, and he made the topic the text of a reflection on the fickleness of public taste:

too.

HAMLET. Do the boys carry it away?

ROSENCRANTZ. Ay, that they do, my lord, Hercules and his load

HAMLET. It is not very strange; for my uncle is King of Denmark, and those that would make mows at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture in little.

Jealousies in the ranks of the dramatists accentuated the actor's difficulties. Ben Jonson was, at the end of the sixteenth century, engaged in a fierce personal quarrel with two of his fellow-dramatists, Marston and Dekker. The adult actors generally avowed sympathy with Jonson's foes. Jonson, by way of revenge, sought an offensive alliance with 'the Children of the Chapel. Under careful tuition the boys proved capable of performing much the same pieces as the men. To 'the children' Jonson offered in 1600 his comical satire of 'Cynthia's Revels,' in which he held up to ridicule Dekker, Marston, and their actorfriends. The play, when acted by 'the children' at the Blackfriars Theatre, was warmly welcomed by the audience. Next year Jonson repeated his manoeuvre with greater

The strife

between adult and

boy actors.

Shakespeare's

references

to the struggle.

effect. He learnt that Marston and Dekker were conspiring with the actors of Shakespeare's company to attack him in a piece called 'Satiro-Mastix, or the Untrussing of the Humourous Poet.' He anticipated their design by producing, again with 'the Children of the Chapel,' his 'Poetaster,' which was throughout a venomous invective against his enemies - dramatists and actors alike. Shakespeare's company retorted by producing Dekker and Marston's 'Satiro-Mastix' at the Globe Theatre next year. But Jonson's action had given new life to the vogue of the children. Playgoers took sides in the struggle, and their attention was for a season riveted, to the exclusion of topics more germane to their province, on the actors' and dramatists' boisterous war of personalities.

In his detailed references to the conflict in 'Hamlet' Shakespeare protested against the abusive comments on the men-actors of 'the common stages' or public theatres which were put into the children's mouths. Rosencrantz declared that 'the children so berattle [i.e. assail] the common stages - so they call them - that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither [i.e. to the public theatres].' Hamlet in pursuit of the theme pointed out that the writers who encouraged the vogue of the 'child-actors' did them a poor service, because when the boys should reach men's estate they would run the risk, if they continued on the stage, of the same insults and neglect which now threatened their seniors.

HAMLET. What are they children? Who maintains 'em? how are they escoted [i.e. paid]? Will they pursue the quality [i.e. the actor's profession] no longer than they can sing? Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players as it is most like, if their means are no better their writers do them wrong to make them exclaim against their own succession?

ROSENCRANTZ. Faith, there has been much to do on both sides, and the nation holds it no sin to tarre [i.e. incite] them to controversy: there was for a while no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.

HAMLET. Is it possible?

GUILDENSTERN. O, there has been much throwing about of

brains!

Shakespeare clearly favoured the adult actors in their rivalry with the boys, but he wrote more like a disinterested spectator than an active partisan when he made specific reference to the strife between the poet Ben Jonson and

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