MARSHAL. Sir, yonder is your place. PER. Some other is more fit. 1 KNIGHT. Contend not, sir; for we are gentlemen, That neither in our hearts, nor outward eyes, Sit, sir, sit. By Jove, I wonder, that is king of thoughts, These cates resist me, he not thought upon a. THAI. By Juno, that is queen of marriage, All viands that I eat do seem unsavoury, Wishing him my meat: sure he 's a gallant gentleman. THAI. To me he seems like diamond to glass. None that beheld him, but, like lesser lights, Where now his son 's like a glow-worm in the night, 1 KNIGHT. Who can be other in this royal presence? We drink this health to you. KNIGHTS. We thank your grace. SIM. Yet pause a while; yon knight doth sit too melancholy, As if the entertainment in our court This speech is usually assigned to Pericles; and in the second line under this arrangement, we read, "she not thought upon." But throughout the remainder of the scene Pericles gives no intimation of a sudden attachment to the Princess. The King, on the contrary, is evidently moved to treat him with marked attention, and to bestow his thoughts upon him almost as exclusively as his daughter. If we leave the old reading, and the old indication of the speaker, Simonides wonders that he cannot eat-" these cates resist me"-although he (Pericles) is "not thought upon." This is an attempt to disguise the cause of his solicitude even to himself. It must be observed that the succeeding speeches of Simonides, Thaisa, and Pericles, are all to be received as soliloquies. In the second speech Simonides continues the idea of "he not thought upon," by attempting to depreciate Pericles-" He 's but a country gentleman.” Where-whereas. Stord. The first quarto has sturd; the subsequent copies stirr'd-each the same word. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. THE first edition of 'Pericles' appeared in 1609, under the following title:-The late and much admired play, called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. With the true relation of the whole historie, adventures, and fortunes of the said prince: As also the no lesse strange and worthy accidents, in the birth and life of his daughter Mariana. As it hath been divers and sundry times acted [by] his Maiesties Seruants at the Globe on the Bank-side. By William Shakespeare. Imprinted at London for Henry Gosson, and are to be sold at the sign of the Sunne in Paternoster-row, &c. 1609.' Other quarto editions appeared in 1611, in 1619, in 1630, and in 1635. The variations in these from the text of 1609 are very slight. In 1664 'Pericles' first appeared in the folio collection of Shakspere's works, being introduced into the third edition, whose title page states "Unto this impression is added seven plays never before printed in folio." We advocate the belief that 'Pyrocles,' or 'Pericles,' was a very early work of Shakspere, in some form, however different from that which we possess. That it was an early work we are constrained to believe; not from the evidence of particular passages, which may be deficient in power or devoid of refinement, but from the entire construction of the dramatic action. The play is essentially one of movement, which is a great requisite for dramatic success; but that movement is not held in subjection to an unity of idea. But with this essential disadvantage we can not doubt that, even with very imperfect dialogue, the action presented a succession of scenes of very absorbing interest. The introduction of Gower, however inartificial it may seem, was the result of very profound skill. The presence of Gower supplied the unity of idea which the desultory nature of the story wanted. Nevertheless, such a story we believe could not have been chosen by Shakspere in the seventeenth century, when his art was fully developed in all its wondrous powers and combinations. With his perfect mastery of the faculty of representing, instead of recording, the treatment of a story which would have required perpetual explanation and connection would have been painful to him, if not impossible. a Dr. Drake has bestowed very considerable attention upon the endeavour to prove that 'Pericles' ought to be received as the indisputable work of Shakspere. Yet his arguments, after all, amount only to the establishment of the following theory: "No play, in fact, more openly discloses the hand of Shakspere than 'Pericles,' and fortunately his share in its composition appears to have been very considerable; he may be distinctly, though not frequently, traced, in the first and second Acts; after which, feeling the incompetency of his fellow-labourer, he seems to have assumed almost the entire management of the remainder, nearly the whole of the third, fourth, and fifth Acts bearing indisputable testimony to the genius and execution of the great master." We have no faith whatever in this very easy mode of disposing of the authorship of a doubtful play-of leaving entirely out of view the most important part of every drama, its action, its characterisation, looking at the whole merely as a collection of passages, of which the worst are to be assigned to some âme damnée, and the best triumphantly claimed for Shakspere. There are some, however, who judge of such matters upon broader principles. Mr. Hallam says, “Pericles' is generally reckoned to be in part, and only in part, the work of Shakspeare. From the poverty and bad management of the fable, the want of any effective or dis tinguishable character, for Marina is no more than the common form of female virtue, such as all the dramatists of that age could draw, and a general feebleness of the a Shakspeare and his Times,' vol. ii. p. 263. or third manner than of his first." But this belief is not inconsistent with the opinion that the original structure was Shakspere's. No other poet that existed at the beginning of the seventeenth century-perhaps no poet that came after that period, whether Massin tragedy as a whole, I should not believe the structure to have been Shakspere's. But many passages are far more in his manner than in that of any contemporary writer with whom I am acquainted." Here "the poverty and bad management of the fable" -"the want of any effective or distinguish-ger, or Fletcher, or Webster-could have able character," are assigned for the belief that the structure could not have been Shakspere's. But let us accept Dryden's opinion that "Shakspeare's own muse his Pericles first bore," with reference to the original structure of the play, and the difficulty vanishes. It was impossible that the character of the early drama should not have been impressed upon Shakspere's earliest efforts. Do we therefore think that the drama, as it has come down to us, is presented in the form in which it was first written? By no means. We agree with Mr. Hallam, that in parts the language seems rather that of Shakspere's "second a History of Literature,' vol. iii. p. 569. written the greater part of the fifth Act. Coarse as the comic scenes are, there are touches in them unlike any other writer but Shakspere. We are willing to believe that, even in the very height of his fame, Shakspere would have bestowed any amount of labour for the improvement of an early production of his own, if the taste of his audiences had from time to time demanded its continuance upon the stage. It is for this reason that we think that the 'Pericles' which appears to have been in some respects a new play at the beginning of the seventeenth century was the revival of a play written by Shakspere some twenty years earlier. This king were great, his greatness was no guard To bar heav'n's shaft, but sin had his reward. ESCA. 'T is very true. Enter three Lords. 1 LORD. See, not a man in private conference, HEL. Your griefs, for what? wrong not your prince you love. But if the prince do live, let us salute him, Or know what ground 's made happy by his breath. If in the world he live, we 'll seek him out; If in his grave he rest, we 'll find him there; Or dead, gives cause to mourn his funeral, And leaves us to our free election. 2 LORD. Whose death 's, indeed, the strongest in our censure3: And knowing this kingdom is without a head, (Like goodly buildings left without a roof Soon fall to ruin,) your noble self, That best know'st how to rule, and how to reign, OMNES. Live, noble Helicane. HEL. Try honour's cause; forbear your suffrages: But if I cannot win you to this love, Go search like nobles, like noble subjects, And in your search spend your adventurous worth; Whom if you find, and win unto return, You shall like diamonds sit about his crown. a Censure―opinion. We believe, says the speaker, that the probability of the death of Pericles is the strongest. He then proceeds to assume that the kingdom is without a head. So the ancient readings, which we follow. Seas. Malone proposed to read seat. |