of any value. One is that it was in those plays that Shakespeare made his first studies of the non-tragical relations between lovers, and formed his ways of looking at and expressing those relations: it was inevitable, therefore, that when he took up the parallel relations of friendship, the treatment should exhibit coincidences. And the other is that the comedies were frequently repeated, so that the poet was not allowed to forget his earlier studies: he might have gone home any evening before 1609 with his head full of "Love's Labour Lost" or the " Comedy of Errors." We cannot, therefore, argue from coincidences in idea and expression that a sonnet and a play were composed at the same date. The only sonnet of really indisputable date is the 107th, containing the reference to the death of Elizabeth or "Cynthia" as the eclipse of "the mortal moon": this must have been composed after it had been seen that Elizabeth's death was to be followed by no dangerous consequences. This sonnet must have been composed some time after March 1603. Now, in the 104th sonnet, the poet tells his friend that three winters and three summers have passed since first they met. If, then, there is any chronological sequence in the sonnets, if there is not a gap of several years between the 104th and the 107th-and in the absence of evidence to the contrary the presumption is that there is not-this would seem to show that Shakespeare made the acquaintance of his friend not long before the beginning of the century. Which conclusion exactly suits the claims of Pembroke, who came to London in 1598, a youth of 18-and is radically adverse to the claims of Southampton, whom Shakespeare knew at least as early as 1594. The argument is not entitled to much weight, inasmuch as it presumes a chronological sequence, but it deserves to be mentioned as a slight corroboration.

Again, in the first sonnet, where the poet opens his recommendations of marriage, the friend is called "only herald to the gaudy spring." What gaudy spring? Is this another reference to the time described in the 107th sonnet—

"Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time

My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes"?

The minds of men seem to have been agitated by the fear of a disputed succession after the death of Elizabeth, and there was a disposition, partly from relief at the passing of the crisis without disturbance, and partly from a desire to flatter the new king, to hail the accession of James hopefully and joyfully as a spring. Thus Daniel in his Panegyric to the King's Most Excellent Majesty, exclaimed

"What a return of comfort dost thou bring,
Now at this fresh returning of our blood!
This meeting with the opening of the spring,
To make our spirits likewise to embud!
What a new season of encouraging
Begins to enlength the days disposed to good!
What apprehension of recovery

Of greater strength, of more ability!

The pulse of England never yet did beat
So strong as now: nor ever were our hearts
Let out to hopes so spacious and so great
As now they are: nor ever in all parts
Did we thus feel so comfortable heat

As now the glory of thy worth imparts:
The whole complexion of the commonwealth

So weak before, hoped never for more health."

It is not at all improbable that Shakespeare's "gaudy spring" was this same exultant season; and if so, Southampton cannot have been the friend addressed with such glowing flattery and urgent fervour, seeing that he had then been married for several years. Pembroke was then twenty-three years of age, and, as the representative of the Sidneys, might well be hailed as the world's fresh ornament," and "only herald of the gaudy spring." The fact is, that the more one looks into this vexed question, the more does one find little particulars emerging, singly inconclusive, but all increasing the weight of the probability that Pembroke was the man.1

Let us turn now for a moment to a question hardly less interesting, namely-Who was the rival poet alluded to in the sonnets ? So complete is the parallel of this course of true friendship to the course of true love that even the passion of jealousy finds a place. Nine sonnets (lxxviii. - lxxxvi.) are occupied with the pretensions of other poets, and one poet in particular, to the gracious countenance of his patron. In the 80th sonnet he cries:

"O how I faint when I of you do write,

Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame!
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,

My saucy bark inferior far to his

On your broad main doth wilfully appear."

Who was this "better spirit"? I hope I shall not be held guilty of hunting after paradox if I say that every possible poet

1 Mr Thomas Tyler and Rev. W. A. Harrison have recently adduced new arguments in favour of Pembroke. See Academy, March 8 and 22, April 19, June 7 and 21, July 5, 1884.

has been named but the right one, nor of presumption if I say that he is so obvious that his escape from notice is something little short of miraculous. The 86th sonnet supplies ample means of identification :

"Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,

Bound for the prize of all too precious you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
He, nor that affable familiar ghost

Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors of my silence cannot boast:

I was not sick of any fear from thence:
But when your countenance filled up his line,
Then lacked I matter; that enfeebled mine."

The allusions to supernatural assistance are here very pointed, and upon the strength of them Marlowe has been suggested as having been a man of dark and mysterious reputation, who was suspected of dealings with evil spirits. The insuperable objection to Marlowe is that he died in 1593; and even supposing Southampton to have been Shakespeare's patron, we have no evidence of their acquaintance prior to 1593, and there is no evidence that Marlowe was acquainted with Southampton at all. Mr Massey, however, argues confidently for Marlowe, on the ground that there was nobody else to whom the pointed charge of supernatural dealing could apply. But there was another to whom the allusions apply more pointedly than to Marlowe, and that was George Chapman, a man less honoured now, but numbered in his own generation among the greatest of its poets. Chapman was a man of overpowering enthusiasm, ever eager in magnifying poetry, and advancing fervent claims to supernatural inspiration. In 1594 he published a poem called the "Shadow of Night," which goes far to establish his identity with Shakespeare's rival. In the Dedication, after animadverting severely on vulgar searchers after knowledge, he exclaims-" Now what a supererogation in wit this is, to think Skill so mightily pierced with their loves that she should prostitutely show them her secrets, when she will scarcely be looked upon by others but with invocation, fasting, watching; yea, not without having drops of their souls like a heavenly familiar.' Here we have something like a profession of the familiar ghost that Shakespeare saucily laughs at. But Shakespeare's rival gets his intelligence by night: special stress is laid in the sonnet upon the aid of his compeers by night, and his nightly familiar. Well, Chapman's poem is called the "Shadow of Night," and its

purpose is to extol the wonderful powers of Night in imparting knowledge to her votaries. He addresses her with fervent devotion :

And he cries

"Rich tapered sanctuary of the blest,

Palace of ruth, made all of tears and rest,
To thy black shades and desolation
I consecrate my life."

:

"All you possessed with indepressed spirits,
Endued with nimble and aspiring wits,
Come consecrate with me to sacred Night
Your whole endeavours and detest the light.

No pen can anything eternal write

That is not steeped in humour of the Night."

It is not simply that night is the best season for study: the enthusiastic poet finds more active assistance than silence and freedom from interruption. When the avenues of sense are closed by sleep, his soul rises to the court of Skill (the mother of knowledge, who must be propitiated by drops of the soul like an heavenly familiar), and if he could only remember what he learns there, no secret would be hid from him.

"Let soft sleep,

Binding my senses lose my working soul,
That in her highest pitch she may control
The court of Skill, compact of mystery,
Wanting but franchisement and memory
To reach all secrets."

As regards the other feature in the rival poet, "the proud full sail of his great verse," that applies with almost too literal exactness to the Alexandrines of Chapman's Homer, part of which appeared in 1596; and as for its being bound for the prize of Shakespeare's patron, both Pembroke and Southampton were included in the list of those honoured with dedicatory sonnets in a subsequent edition. Chapman's chief patron was Sir Francis Walsingham, whose daughter Sir Philip Sidney had married, and nothing could have been more natural than that the old man should introduce his favourite to the Countess of Pembroke or her son. But apart from Alexandrines and proved or probable connection with Southampton and Pembroke, I contend that the other reference to Chapman is too pointed to be mistaken; and though Chapman's name has not received due prominence in the manuals of our literature, no one who has read any of his poetry, and who knows his own lofty pretensions and the rank accorded him in his own generation, will think that his "proud sail" has been unduly honoured by the affected jealousy and good-humoured banter of the "saucy bark" of Shakespeare.

224

CHAPTER VI.

DRAMATISTS BEFORE SHAKESPEARE.

A VERY natural question to ask, in beginning the study of the Elizabethan drama, is, What were the causes of that extraordinary outburst of creative genius? No satisfactory answer has yet been given to that question: perhaps none can be given. There the literature stands full grown; but when we are asked how it came there, we can do little more than point to the names of its creators, and say that their genius was equal to the task of producing it.

Time, with its slow development of new theatrical customs out of new social needs, brought them their opportunity. The stimulating novelty of the form must stand first in the list of "causes of the greatness of the Elizabethan drama. The significance of this simple fact, as generally happens with obvious facts, has been overlooked by ætiological speculators. Two great types of drama -using the word as equivalent to tragic drama-have been born into the world; both attained their supreme height within a generation of their birth, and all subsequent attempts to revive their early magnificence have been little better than mechanical attempts to make a living body. If we wish to know what the Greek type of drama is capable of, we must go to the Athenian dramatists of the fifth century B.C.; and if we wish to know what the English type of drama is capable of, we must go to Shakespeare and his immediate contemporaries and successors. The fascination of these organs of expression for the human spirit was greatest while they were new. To put it somewhat mathematically, in the first generation of their existence they drew towards them irresistibly a larger proportion of free intellect than they were ever able to attract in subsequent generations. This is the law of all subjects of disinterested intellectual effort, whether artistic or scientific. The most ambitious intellects rush after the newest subjects with which they have affinity: if the subjects are great, and succeed in fascinating congenial minds, then the results are great.