Page:The Review of English Studies Vol 1.djvu/66

54 But the whole situation there is entirely different. The nineteen lines Clifford pronounces are by no means the great “air de bravoure” which is the climax of the play and decides about the orator’s fate; they are, on the contrary, comparatively so unimportant that the King does not even feel compelled to say a word of thanks to him for them, let alone to promote him. It is true that the authors could find in their sources that More had showed himself of considerable eloquence in Parliament; still the idea of his creating a wave of enthusiasm by a public speech which bears him up to the highest dignities at once is strange to the facts. Imitation of Julius Cæsar explains it best. But there are other reminiscences as well, which point to the same date. I cannot repeat here what I have tried to make clear (p. 236, l.c.) about the similarity between the actors’ scene in Hamlet and the actors’ scene in Sir Thomas More. I doubt if it is invalidated by Chambers’ remark, that “if More’s attitude to the players sometimes reminds us of Hamlet’s, there is nothing more than can well be accounted for by the common atmosphere in which both plays grew up.” Can a common atmosphere (?) produce parallel situations and attitudes of this sort? Another likeness has been left unmentioned up to now. It is to be found in Sir Thomas More,, i, where Justice Suresbie is let down by the cunning pick-pocket Lifter. The source (cf. Dyce, p. 13) only describes him as a “grave, old man,” later on, “so bitter a censurer of innocent men’s negligence.” In the play he is a pompous person, loquacious, vain, jovial from a wrong feeling of superiority, inclined to vent a gaiety which is principally pleasedness with himself, endeavouring to be witty and thinking himself so, with a certain over-officiousness, which expresses itself in his language, for he repeats the same words two or three times: “Sirra, be breefe, be breef! … doo not, doo not, sirra. … There be, varlet! What be there? Tell me what there be. Come off or on: there be! what be there, knave? … Well … well … excellent, excellent … yfaith, yfaith. …”

There can be little doubt that this Justice Suresbie is the image of Justice Shallow in Shakespeare’s 2 ''Hen. IV, even to his manner of speech (compare passages like, ii, 96 seq.: “Where’s the roll? where’s the roll? where’s the roll? Let me see, let me see, let me see. …”) Now 2 Hen. IV'' was written 1598 or early in 1599 (R. P. Cowl, Arden Edition, 1923, p. xv). The figure of Justice Shallow became evidently soon famous, as is shown by a passage