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II.

THE COMEDIES.

THE TEMPEST.

DATE. This beautiful Comedy has usually been considered one of the latest efforts of the muse of Shakespeare. My inquiries have led me to a very different conclusion.* So far from being the work of a late period of the poet's life, it appears to me to be an early work, the growth of what we may call the youth of his dramatic life; and, indeed, that, of all the plays which are wholly his, it is nearly the first in point of time, as it is indisputably among the first in the order of merit.

In the inquiries which have led to this conclusion I have laid no stress upon the fact that when his fellow-performers Heminge and Condell collected all the acknowledged plays of Shakespeare in a folio volume they gave the first place

* Most of the ensuing facts and arguments have already appeared in a tract of which a very small number of copies were printed in 1839, chiefly for private distribution, entitled A Disquisition on the Scene, Oriyin, Date, &c. &c. of Shakespeare's Tempest. In a Letter to Benjamin Heywood Bright, Esq. from the Rev. Joseph Hunter, F.S.A. This circumstance will account for the more controversial air of the remarks on this play than of the remarks on other plays which follow, the Disquisition having had the benefit of a good deal of adverse criticism. But the very nature of a work like this, which is supplementary to many previous undertakings, and is intended expressly to correct errors and extend knowledge in respect of the writings of this great poet, must necessarily require that there shall be much throughout the whole that is more or less controversial, and that I shall not unfrequently appear in the light in which some persons have been pleased to place me, as opposed to every one else." I value these writings so, that a higher compliment, or one which I should value more, could not be paid me, than that I had discovered a truth concerning them concealed from former inquirers, or that I had cleared away mistakes of either early or recent critics. My aim is the discovery and establishment of what is the truth; and of all kinds of writings none ought to be of less esteem than those which, with whatever view, are intended to discourage critical research, or to defend proved errors.

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to The Tempest, because the principle on which they proceeded in their arrangement cannot be determined. I have also not thought it necessary to dwell much on the signs of the poet's advancement in the dramatic art, or of immaturity, seeing how uncertain these signs are, as is proved by the conclusions to which so many persons have been led who trusted to them being shewn to be erroneous by the discovery of actual dates in external evidence that were wholly unquestionable. It will moreover hardly be contended that Shakespeare's powers do not appear as fully developed in some of the works which are known to belong to the earlier period of his life as in those which he produced when he had been long practised in dramatic composition. When we look at such a play, for instance, as The Merchant of Venice we are forced to admit that he attained perfection at once in his own style of dramatic composition; and few would probably contend that he who produced so fine a play as that is might not at the same period of his life have produced The Tempest also. Were not such indications when the object is to settle the chronological order proved to be so delusive, even when submitted to the most refined and penetrating intellects, it might be said that this play is not without indications of inexperience in the dramatic art quite sufficient to be used as a counter-argument against any evidence of this kind which those who prefer to rely on this species of evidence might produce. Thus, one practised in the dramatic art would hardly have given us such a scene as the second of the first act, where we have a long dialogue between Prospero and Miranda, which is plainly intended for the information of the audience, and not to carry on the business of the play. This scene, beautiful as it is in itself, affords the most striking instance of this too common violation of the rules of the dramatic art that is to be found in

any of the works of Shakespeare. There is also some want of dramatic skill in the extreme abruptness of the charge which Prospero makes against Ferdinand

Thou dost here usurp

The name thou ow'st not; and hast put thyself

Upon this island, as a spy, to win it

From me the lord on't.

Act i. Sc. 2.

Nor, at a later period of his life, would he have introduced such direct imitations of Ovid and Virgil as we have in the address of Prospero to the Spirits when he announces that his connection with them has ceased:

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, or groves, &c.

and, though less obviously, the speech of Ariel as a harpy at the disappearance of the banquet:

Are ministers of fate, &c.

I and my fellows

Still less should we have had those constrained passages in which we have the description of Ferdinand swimming to shore, and of the working of a guilty conscience in the mind of Alonzo, in which Shakespeare appears to have put himself in competition with Ariosto, and to have made an effort to excel him, in which he has overleaped himself.

We nowhere find it stated specifically on what it is that those critics rely who contend that the internal evidence derived from the style and language indicates that The Tempest is a late production.* This is affirmed, but the proof is not given,

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*Thus Mr. Collier: "It seems to us likewise that the internal evidence, derived from style and language, clearly indicates that it was a late production." -Shakespeare's Works, vol. i. p. 3. Such kind of assertions are easily made, and as easy would it be to write thus, substituting an early" for "a late." Coleridge, also, as I learn from Mr. Collier, thought it one of Shakespeare's latest works, "judging from the language only," Ib. p. 7; but then Coleridge's theory on the chronological order was ever changing, as all theories on this subject must necessarily be which are founded on principles such as his. Mr. Collier adds, "Schlegel was of the same opinion, without, however, assigning any dis.

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