Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/204

 colony upon the coast of Maine. He kidnapped five Abenaki Indians near the mouth of the Sagadahoc, and carried them home. Three of these were kept by Gorges at Plymouth, and the other two were sent up to London to the care of the Chief Justice. One of these died there. The passage in the "Tempest" is strong confirmation that Shakspeare went with the other cockneys to see him.

Though Shakspeare empties all his own love for pure fun into this clown, he makes of him the only cool and consistent character in the play, and thus conveys to us his conviction of the superiority of an observer who has wit, humor, repartee, burlesquing, and buffoonery at command; for none but wise men can make such fools of themselves. Such a fine composition is apt to be misunderstood by the single-gifted and prosaic people; but this only piques the bells to their happiest jingle; and a man is never more convinced of the divine origin of his buffooning talent than when the didactic souls reject it as heresy. All Shakspeare's clowns brandish this fine bauble: their bells swing in a Sabbath air and summon us to a service of wisdom. Feste has no passion to fondle, and no chances to lie in wait for except those which can help his foolery to walk over everybody like the sun. Even when he seems to be wheedling money out of the Duke and Viola, he is only in sport with the weakness which purse-holders have to fee, to conciliate, to enjoy an aspect of grandeur. His perfectly dispassionate temper is sagacity itself. It discerns the solemn fickleness of the principal personages. They are all