contemporaries of Shakespeare, or aware of their general
merits; and that he accordingly mistakes a resemblance
in style and manner for an equal degree of excellence.
Shakespeare differed from the other writers of his
age not in the mode of treating his subjects, but
in the grace and power which he displayed in them.
The reason assigned by a literary friend of Schlegel’s
for supposing the Puritan; or, the
widow of Watling street, to be
Shakespeare’s, viz. that it is in the style
of Ben Jonson, that is to say, in a style just the
reverse of his own, is not very satisfactory to a
plain English understanding. LOCRINE, and the
London prodigal, if they were Shakespeare’s
at all, must have been among the sins of his youth.
Arden of FEVERSHAM contains several striking
passages, but the passion which they express is rather
that of a sanguine tem-perament than of a lofty imagination;
and in this respect they approximate more nearly to
the style of other writers of the time than to Shakespeare’s.
Titus Andronicus is certainly as unlike
Shakespeare’s usual style as it is possible.
It is an accumulation of vulgar physical horrors,
in which the power exercised by the poet bears no
proportion to the repugnance excited by the subject.
The character of Aaron the Moor is the only thing
which shows any originality of conception; and the
scene in which he expresses his joy ’at the
blackness and ugliness of his child begot in adultery’,
the only one worthy of Shakespeare. Even this
is worthy of him only in the display of power, for
it gives no pleasure. Shakespeare managed these
things differently. Nor do we think it a sufficient
answer to say that this was an embryo or crude production
of the author. In its kind it is full grown, and
its features decided and overcharged. It is not
like a first imperfect essay, but shows a confirmed
habit, a systematic preference of violent effect to
everything else. There are occasional detached
images of great beauty and delicacy, but these were
not beyond the powers of other writers then living.
The circumstance which inclines us to reject the external
evidence in favour of this play being Shakespeare’s
is, that the grammatical construction is constantly
false and mixed up with vulgar abbreviations, a fault
that never occurs in any of his genuine plays.
A similar defect, and the halting measure of the verse
are the chief objections to Pericles of
Tyre, if we except the far-fetched and complicated
absurdity of the story. The movement of the thoughts
and passions has something in it not unlike Shakespeare,
and several of the descriptions are either the original
hints of passages which Shakespeare has engrafted on
his other plays, or are imitations of them by some
contemporary poet. The most memorable idea in
it is in Marina’s speech, where she compares
the world to ’a lasting storm, hurrying her from
her friends’.