Shakspere and Montaigne | Page 7

chief interest on which it had thriven for a while--namely, the
representation of affairs of public interest--obtained more practical
expression in other spheres. In the meantime, however, it remained the
platform on which everything could be subjected to the criticism and
jurisdiction of public opinion.
In Chettle's 'Kind-Harte's Dreame' (1592) the proprietor of a house of
evil fame concludes his speech with reproaches against actors on
account of their spoiling his trade; 'for no sooner have we a tricke of
deceipt, but they make it common, singing jigs, and making jeasts of us,
that everie boy can point out our houses as they passe by.' Again, in
Ben Jonson's 'Poetaster,' we read that 'your courtier cannot kiss his
mistress's slippers in quiet for them; nor your white innocent gallant
pawn his revelling suit to make his punk a supper;' or that 'an honest,
decayed commander cannot skelder, cheat, nor be seen in a bawdy
house, but he shall be straight in one of their wormwood comedies.'
[14]

Not less boldly than social affairs were political matters treated; but in
order to avoid a prosecution, these questions had to be cautiously
approached in parable fashion. Never was greater cleverness shown in
this respect than at Shakspere's time. Every poet, every statesman, or
otherwise highly-placed person, was 'heckled' under an allegorical
name--a circumstance which at present makes it rather difficult for us
to fully fathom the meaning of certain dramatic productions.
In order to attract the crowd, the stage-poets had to present their dishes
with the condiments of actual life; thus studying more the taste of the
guests than showing that of the cook. Prologues and Epilogues always
appealed more to the public at large as the highest judge; its verdict
alone was held to be the decisive one.
Manuscripts--the property of
companies whose interest it was not to make them generally known in
print--were continually altered according to circumstances. Guided by
the impressions of the public, authors struck out what had been badly
received; whilst passages that had earned applause, remained as the
encouraging and deciding factor for the future.
At one time dramas were written almost with the same rapidity as
leading articles are to-day. Even as our journalists do in the press, so
the dramatists of that period carried on their debates about certain
questions of the day on the stage. In language the most passionate,
authors fell upon each other--a practice for which we have to thank
them, in so far as we thereby gain matter-of-fact points for a correct
understanding of 'Hamlet.'
In the last but one decennium of the sixteenth century, the first
dramatists arose who pursued fixed literary tendencies. Often their
compositions are mere exercises of style after Greek or Roman models
which never became popular on the Thames. The taste of the English
people does not bear with strange exotic manners for any length of time.
It is lost labour to plant palm-trees where oaks only can thrive. Lily and
others endeavoured to gain the applause of the mass by words of
finely-distilled fragrance, to which no coarse grain, no breath or the
native atmosphere clung. A fruitless beginning, as little destined to
succeed as the exertions of those who tried to shine by pedantic

learning and hollow glittering words.
Marlowe's powerful imagination attempts marshalling the whole world,
in his booth of theatrical boards, after the rhythm of drumming
decasyllabon and bragging blank-verse. In his dramas, great conquerors
pass the frontiers of kingdoms with the same ease with which one steps
over the border of a carpet. The people's fancy willingly follows the
bold poet. In the short space of three hours he makes his 'Faust' [15]
live through four-and-twenty years, in order 'to conquer, with sweet
pleasure, despair.' The earth becomes too small for this dramatist.
Heaven and Hell, God and the Devil, have to respond to his inquiries.
Like some of his colleagues, Marlowe is a sceptic: he calls Moses a
'conjurer and seducer of the people,' and boasts that, if he were to try,
he would succeed in establishing a better religion than the one he sees
around himself. The apostle of these high thoughts, not yet thirty years
old, breathed his last, in consequence of a duel in a house of evil repute.
Another hopeful disciple of lyric and dramatic poetry and prose-writer,
Robert Greene, once full of similar free-thinking ideas, lay on his
deathbed at the age of thirty-two, after a life of dissipation. Thence he
writes to his forsaken wife:--
'All my wrongs muster themselves about me; every evill at once
plagues me. For my contempt of God, I am contemned of men; for my
swearing and forswearing, no man will believe me; for my gluttony, I
suffer hunger; for my drunkenesse, thirst; for my adulterie, ulcerous
sores. Thus God has