Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/382

 watchmen Dogberry and Verges, is wholly original; but the sombre story of Hero and Claudio with which it is entwined is drawn from an Italian source, either from Bandello (Novel. xxii.) through Belleforest's ‘Histoires Tragiques,’ or from Ariosto's ‘Orlando Furioso’ through Sir John Harington's translation (canto v.). ‘As you like it,’ which quickly followed, is a dramatic adaptation of Lodge's romance, ‘Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie’ (1590), but Shakespeare added three new characters of first-rate interest—Jaques the meditative cynic, the fool Touchstone, and the hoyden Audrey. The date of ‘Twelfth Night’ is probably 1600. Steevens supposed that ‘the new map with the augmentation of the Indies,’ spoken of by Maria (act iii. sc. ii. l. 86), had reference to the map in Linschoten's ‘Voyages,’ 1598. Like the ‘Comedy of Errors,’ ‘Twelfth Night’ first achieved general notice through a presentation before barristers. It was produced at Middle Temple Hall on 2 Feb. 1601–2, and Manningham, a barrister who was present, described the performance (Diary, Camden Soc. p. 18; the Elizabethan Stage Society repeated the play on the same stage on 10, 11, and 12 Feb. 1897). Manningham wrote that the piece was ‘much like the “Comedy of Errors” or “Menechmi” in Plautus, but most like and neere to that in Italian called “Inganni.”’ Two Italian plays entitled ‘Gl' Inganni’ (‘The Cheats’), and a third called ‘Gl' Ingannati,’ present resemblances to ‘Twelfth Night;’ but it is doubtful if Shakespeare had recourse to any of them. Shakespeare drew the story from the ‘Historie of Apolonius and Silla’ in ‘Riche his Farewell to Militarie Profession’ (1581), an English rendering of a tale in Cinthio's ‘Hecatommithi.’ The characters of Malvolio, Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Fabian, the clown Feste, and Maria, who lighten the romantic pathos with their mirth, are Shakespeare's own creations. The ludicrous gravity of Malvolio proved exceptionally popular on the stage.

In 1601 Shakespeare made a new departure. He first drew a plot from North's translation of ‘Plutarch's Lives’ (1579; 2nd edit. 1595). On Plutarch's lives of Julius Cæsar, Brutus, and Antony he based his historical tragedy of ‘Julius Cæsar.’ Weever, in 1601, in his ‘Mirror of Martyrs,’ plainly refers to the masterly speech allotted by Shakespeare to Antony, of which there is no suggestion in Plutarch; hence the date cannot be questioned. The general topic was already familiar on the stage (cf. Hamlet, act iii. sc. ii. l. 108). A play of the same title was known as early as 1589, and was acted in 1594 by Shakespeare's company. Shakespeare's piece, which is a penetrating study of political life, is exceptionally well planned and balanced. The characters of Brutus, Antony, and Cassius are exhibited with faultless art.

Meanwhile, Shakespeare's friend Ben Jonson was engaged in bitter warfare with his fellow-dramatists, Marston and Dekker, and in 1601 Jonson, in his ‘Poetaster’ (acted by the children of the chapel at the Blackfriars Theatre), effectively held his opponents up to ridicule, while they retorted in like fashion (cf., Shakespeare and Montaigne, 1884). Jonson figures personally in the ‘Poetaster’ under the name of Horace. Episodically he expresses approval of the work of another character, Virgil, in terms so closely resembling those which he is known to have applied to Shakespeare that they may be regarded as intended to apply to him (act v. sc. i.). Jonson points out that Virgil, by his penetrating intuition, achieved the great effects which others laboriously sought to reach through rules of art. His learning labours not the school-like gloss That most consists of echoing words and terms … Nor any long or far-fetched circumstance— Wrapt in the curious generalities of arts— But a direct and analytic sum Of all the worth and first effects of arts. And for his poesy, 'tis so rammed with life That it shall gather strength of life with being, And live hereafter, more admired than now.

Shakespeare's attitude to Jonson's quarrel has given rise to various conjectures. In the same year (1601) ‘The Return from Parnassus’—a third piece in a trilogy of plays—was ‘acted by the students in St. John's College, Cambridge.’ In this piece, as in its two predecessors, Shakespeare received, both as a playwright and a poet, high commendation, although his poems were judged to reflect somewhat too largely ‘love's lazy foolish languishment.’ In a prose dialogue between Shakespeare's fellow-actors Burbage and Kempe, which is a prominent feature of the ‘Return,’ Kempe remarks of university dramatists, ‘Why, here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down; aye, and Ben Johnson, too. O ! that Ben Johnson is a pestilent fellow. He brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill; but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit.’ Burbage adds: ‘He is a shrewd fellow, indeed.’ A literal interpretation of this perplexing passage implies that Shakespeare took part against