and an immense dragon. St. George and the dragon had a long combat, hurling fires at each other, which served as torches to display the beauty of the maiden; till, at the end of half an hour, the dragon exploded with a terrific report; and then St. George and the maiden sported with fires till both were consumed. When the smoke cleared away a mountain appeared in the water, and from a cave in its side issued a comet which discharged an infinite number of fusees, whilst a fiery stag, pursued by hunters, made a tumultuous rush into the water, where, after a brief chase, all exploded together.1 For the cost of it all, let us perpend this, bearing in mind how the purchasing power of money has diminished in these centuries (we may multiply by 12 and still be cautious) : The magnificence of the marriage preparations completely bankrupted the Royal exchequer . . . £53,294 was expended, exclusive of the bride's portion of £40,000. Add the two together, multiply by twelve, and we get a sum considerably over a million of our money-nearer a million and a quarter. There was in the middle of it what in less exalted households is known (I believe) as a row. James I. of England was, the reader will remember, also James VI. of Scotland. In a sudden fit of economy the Court was broken up and to the bitter mortification of the Lady Elizabeth, the household provided for her husband was abruptly dismissed. Frederic, responding to the hint thus thrown out, gave intimation to most 1 I quote from the late Mrs. Everett Green's biography of the Princess Elizabeth, first printed as one of her Lives of the Princesses of England, afterwards enlarged and issued as a separate volume. A new edition has recently been published. of the attendants who came over with him (but remained at the King's expense) that their visit had already been sufficiently prolonged. Which reminds one of Mr. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, and how he persuaded his daughter Mary to quit the piano. "That will do excellently well, child. You have delighted us long enough." The narrative ends abruptly : The King, to save appearance, left town for Newmarket. CHAPTER XVI THE TEMPEST II Workmanship as evidence of date of Tempest-Comparison with The Winter's Tale-Gonzalo's commonwealth-Youthful love stronger than Prospero's magic-An exquisite surpriseThe most beautiful love-scene in Shakespeare-Supposed sources of the play-Its central theme-Difficulty of handling reconciliation in a three-hours' play-Shakespeare's attempts to overcome it-The Unities not laws but graces— Shakespeare's "royal ease." (1) FORTUNATELY—and by that word I confess a prejudice even when we have accepted the evidence of the Revels Book that there was a performance of The Tempest on Hallowmas Night (November 1), 1611, before His Majesty in his new banqueting-room at Whitehall, we are still able to believe it the very last play written by Shakespeare. No scrap of external evidence forbids that. In The Winter's Tale we have its one serious challenger for the place. But we can certainly date The Winter's Tale back to the early summer of 1611; for on May 15 our old friend Dr. Simon Forman, physician and astrologer, saw it performed at the Globe Theatre, as he has recorded (appending a sketch of the plot) in his journal, A Booke of Plaies and Notes thereof, preserved in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and undoubtedly genuine. This antedates the earliest recorded performance of The Tempest. I would not press the point unduly as still less would I insist upon it as significant that when Ben Jonson jibed at the two plays in the Introduction to his Bartholomew Fair (1614), he spoke of "those who beget Tales, Tempests and such like drolleries "-using that order. Nor again, passing from external evidence to metrical tests, can I pretend that they settle the question, though I think it remarkable that in The Tempest the percentage of blank verse with what we call "feminine endings" is 35.4; easily the highest in the whole of Shakespeare, 2 per cent. higher than The Winter's Tale, which beats Cymbeline by more than 2 per cent., which again beats All's Well That Ends Well, which in turn beats Lear and Coriolanus; and these six head the list. "But this," an objector may say, “is the evidence of straws." Then let me bring better, still using the method followed in my former papers: that of testing each play by its workmanship. (2) For a beginning.—No one can read The Winter's Tale and The Tempest side by side and fail to observe that they contain a number of stage devices almost identical, but turned to different account. Further, many of these devices are so frequent in Shakespeare's later plays that we may almost say they had become his final stock-in-trade. Let us take a few examples. (1) Perdita and Miranda (and Marina for that matter; but we will not here deal with Pericles) are both Princesses-the one royal, the other ducal-who as infants have been exposed to almost certain death and cast away on a strange shore. (2) Both grow up in complete ignorance of the high fortune to which they are rightfully heiresses. Miranda, questioned by her father Canst thou remember A time before we came unto this cell? I do not think thou canst, for then thou wast not can only answer Certainly, sir, I can And rather like a dream than an assurance That my remembrance warrants. Had I not Four or five women once that tended me? (3) Both Perdita and Miranda owe their deliverance to a good honest courtier, who, charged to see their deaths, finds his heart melt at the last moment. We have the same device in Pericles and again in Cymbeline, and indeed it is one of Shakespeare's favourites. But here observe how far more artistically he works it in The Tempest. As the reader will remember, Perdita's appointed executioner is the old courtier Antigonus; and in dealing with The Winter's Tale I had something to say of the unprincipled and reckless |