Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/190

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. MA*. 4. me.

"way returned to Villach, reaching home on March 23, 1562. After being presented to the Emperor Maximilian II. he took service against the Turks, married a 15-year-old fcride, and died on Aug. 16, 1613.

MALCOLM LETTS.

SHAKESPEARE AND PATRIOTISM

IN a leading article headed ' Shakespeare the Patriot ' a London daily paper recently remarked : " If Shakespeare had been living at this hour. . . .can we not pick out with confidence the themes which would have inspired him ? " And it proceeded to enu- merate a number of the more striking episodes of the war, such as " the heroic stand of Belgium ; the first battle of Ypres ; the immortal deeds of Anzac and Lancashire Landing." It is clear that no opinion, however confident, as to what Shakespeare "would write about if he were alive now can either be proved or refuted conclusively. But, seeing that, in view of the approaching Tercentenary celebrations, statements of the kind just quoted are likely to be made somewhat freely during the next few months, it may be permissible to point out that they are not supported by what we know of his practice when he was alive.

Hidden and allegorical allusions to persons and events of his own time have been dis- covered in plenty in his works; but these are necessarily uncertain in their application, and as a rule carry complete conviction to iew besides their discoverers. The remark- able thing is that direct and unmistakable references to contemporary history are so rare. Shakespeare, as the writer already quoted reminds his readers, " lived through the great days of the war with Spain, and had seen Elizabeth's sea captains." Yet he makes comparatively little mention of naval matters, and none of the great conflict which culminated in the defeat of the Armada, unless the name of the bragging Spaniard in * Love's Labour's Lost,' Don Armado, is to Tae taken as a reference to it, a petty one enough, considering the greatness of the subject.

It is instructive to compare the fine outburst of patriotism at the end of * King John ' with the lines in ' The Troublesome Haigne of King John ' on which it is "based :

If England peeres and people ioyne in one .Nor Pope nor Fraunce nor Spaine can doo them

wrong.

Shakespeare's transformation of doggerel into ringing verse is not more noteworthy

than his deliberate suppression of anything which might seem to bear directly on the affairs of his own time. His patriotism stands out clearly enough in his writings. But he chose to express it not by allusion to contemporary events, but through themedium of his country's history. National unity under a strong ruler is his political ideal. He had studied the history of the preceding century, and had seen how Lancastrian constitutionalism had led to disastrous foreign wars and still more disastrous internal conflicts. The reign of Henry VI., in which these things were at their worst, had formed the subject of his earliest apprenticeship to historical drama, and the miseries of that time of weak central government and powerful nobles seem to have made a deep impression on him. And he accepts the Tudor autocracy as a bulwark of the nation against any recurrence of these disasters.

In holding these views he was a true child of his age. With them is bound up the consciousness of independent national exis- tence, which was stronger under the Tudors than ever before. And this, again, led men to study and take pride in the history of their country; so in choosing that history for his subject Shakespeare was gratifying the patriotic instincts of his readers or spectators as well as his own. At the same time he could treat the episodes which he selected in their due perspective and pro- portion, while avoiding the danger of rousing the passions or prejudices which might still linger round recent events, to the detriment of the effect he sought to produce.

Thus he deals very freely with the reign of John, placing the king in a more favourable Sight than the facts warrant because he stands for national unity against the forces which threaten it both from without and rom within. Conversely ' Richard II.,' which also contains the most famous of his Datriotic utterances, shows how the reign of a weak, ineffective king is followed by disastrous results which last for generations. Henry V.' is an epic of national glory. Treating, as was his wont, the facts of listory as raw material for a work of art, Shakespeare produces the picture of a land happy and united under a hero-king who wins undying fame in a righteous war against heavy odds, crowned by a glorious peace.

In this play occurs almost the only explicit

llusion in Shakespeare to a contemporary

event of importance, the Irish expedition of

Sssex. From the scarcity of such allusions

n his works it seems reasonable to draw the