Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) | Page 8

Sublime, which other Actors can only copy, and throw out, in Action and graceful Attitude. But _Nullum fine Venia placuit Ingenium_, says Seneca. The Genius, that gives us the greatest Pleasure, sometimes stands in Need of our Indulgence. Whenever this happens with regard to Shakespeare, I would willingly impute it to a Vice of his Times. We see Complaisance enough, in our own Days, paid to a bad Taste. His Clinches, false Wit, and descending beneath himself, seem to be a Deference paid to reigning Barbarism. He was a Sampson in Strength, but he suffer'd some such Dalilah to give him up to the Philistines.
As I have mention'd the Sweetness of his Disposition, I am tempted to make a Reflexion or two on a Sentiment of his, which, I am persuaded, came from the Heart.
The Man, that hath no Musick in himself, Nor is not mov'd with Concord of sweet Sounds, Is fit for Treasons, Stratagems, and Spoils: The Motions of his Spirit are dull as Night, And his Affections dark as _Erebus_: Let no such Man be trusted.----
[Sidenote: A Lover of Musick.]
Shakespeare was all Openness, Candour, and Complacence; and had such a Share of Harmony in his Frame and Temperature, that we have no Reason to doubt, from a Number of fine Passages, Allusions, Similies, &_c._ fetch'd from Musick, but that He was a passionate Lover of it. And to this, perhaps, we may owe that great Number of Sonnets, which are sprinkled thro' his Plays. I have found, that the Stanza's sung by the Gravedigger in Hamlet, are not of _Shakespeare_'s own Composition, but owe their Original to the old Earl of _Surrey_'s Poems. Many other of his Occasional little Songs, I doubt not, but he purposely copied from his Contemporary Writers; sometimes, out of Banter; sometimes, to do them Honour. The Manner of their Introduction, and the Uses to which he has assigned them, will easily determine for which of the Reasons they are respectively employ'd. In As you like it, there are several little Copies of Verses on Rosalind, which are said to be the right _Butter-woman's Rank to Market_, and the very false Gallop of Verses. Dr. Thomas Lodge, a Physician who flourish'd early in Queen _Elizabeth_'s Reign, and was a great Writer of the Pastoral Songs and Madrigals, which were so much the Strain of those Times, composed a whole Volume of Poems in Praise of his Mistress, whom he calls Rosalinde. I never yet could meet with this Collection; but whenever I do, I am persuaded, I shall find many of our Author's Canzonets on this Subject to be Scraps of the Doctor's amorous Muse: as, perhaps, those by Biron too, and the other Lovers in _Love's Labour's lost_, may prove to be.
It has been remark'd in the Course of my Notes, that Musick in our Author's time had a very different Use from what it has now. At this Time, it is only employ'd to raise and inflame the Passions; it, then, was apply'd to calm and allay all kinds of Perturbations. And, agreeable to this Observation, throughout all _Shakespeare_'s Plays, where Musick is either actually used, or its Powers describ'd, it is chiefly said to be for these Ends. His _Twelfth-Night_, particularly, begins with a fine Reflexion that admirably marks its soothing Properties.
That Strain again;--It had a dying Fall. Oh, it came o'er my Ear like the sweet South, That breathes upon a Bank of Violets, Stealing and giving Odour!
[Sidenote*: Milton an Imitator of him.]
This Similitude is remarkable not only for the Beauty of the Image that it presents, but likewise for the Exactness to the Thing compared. This is a way of Teaching peculiar to the Poets; that, when they would describe the Nature of any thing, they do it not by a direct Enumeration of its Attributes or Qualities, but by bringing something into Comparison, and describing those Qualities of it that are of the Kind with those in the Thing compared. So, here for instance, the Poet willing to instruct in the Properties of Musick, in which the same Strains have a Power to excite Pleasure, or Pain, according to that State of Mind the Hearer is then in, does it by presenting the Image of a sweet South Wind blowing o'er a Violet-bank; which wafts away the Odour of the Violets, and at the same time communicates to it its own Sweetness: by This insinuating, that affecting Musick, tho' it takes away the natural sweet Tranquillity of the Mind, yet, at the same time, communicates a Pleasure the Mind felt not before. This Knowledge, of the same Objects being capable of raising two contrary Affections, is a Proof of no ordinary Progress in the Study of human Nature. *The general Beauties of those two Poems of MILTON,