SHAKESPEARE AND COMMON SENSE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 318, 3 October 1908, Page 12

SHAKESPEARE AND COMMON SENSE.

Professor Raleigh has written a pleasing monograph on Shakespeare, and has published a diverting lecture on Dr. Johnson. Now he has combined results in this very agreeable little cento of Johnson's Notes on Shakespeare. Whosoever desires to have Johnson to himself for an hour without an interpreter (no Boswell, at any rate, but only a few preliminary quips by the. Professor), cannot do bettor than turn to 'these notes. "Thoy aro written informally and fluently;

thoy are packed full of observation and wisdom ; and their only fault is that they aro all too few." If we aro to live contentedly with books at all at their present rato of increase, it is plain that criticism must play a larger and largor part among the necessary activities ot literature, and, within this category, it is obvious that Shakespeare criticism is going to occupy a large and still larger segment. Books on Shakespearo will soon begin to oust those upon tho Biblo or Homer from their position of supremacy. The state of Shakespearo criticism at a given time is accordingly symptomatic, and it is not unamusing to try and discovor, by feeling its pulso, some of the critical tendencies of the day. During most of the last ccntury_ Shakespeare criticism was traversing a lyrical and romantic poriod, deriving immediately from Coleridge, in which overything was remote, obscure, profound, unverifiable, and, above all, improbable. Tor a criticism even to appear clear was sufficient cause for it to be damned irrevocably as shallow. The nearer a.criticism could approximate tho rccord of an anemometer in tho. supreme agitation ofa violent-gale, the prof ounder its truth was inevitably, if' obscurely, recognised to be. Common sense was felt to bo' an impertinence in tlae case of a genius that was manifestly so super-normal as that of "the Stratford, actor." As an emotionalist he was regarded as hors concours,/and all ordinary tests and criticisms were manifestly irrelevant. ,- Then canio a school of pedantic realists and researchers, who expended all their efforts upon the attempt to'marry this miraclo of transcendent literary creation to the unim-peachable-biographical rccord of a.successful suburban tradesman, whose solitary hobby was money-lending, From this amazing incongruity there aro two possible means' of, escapo, and we shall, in the twentieth century, see both of them eagerly exploited. There is one group of persons (whom their, adversaries, with the amenity that has become traditional in Shakespeare controversy, refer to us as "dancing maniacs"), who say, "Yes, the work of Shakespearo is miraculous, as miraculous, as , the psychology of the pundits who ask us to believe, that it was the work of a provincial actor who could barely write liis own name"! There is another robust and less fantastic school, who say that the "miracle" lias been prodigiously exaggerated. They go so far as to say that sagacity should count for something in Shakespeare criticism, after all.

The Oxford Professor (0 whirligig of Time I) has thrown in his lot with those stolid folk, and cried "Hurra for Johnson I" To him, as to many of us, the rigid romantic pose has begun to bo fa.tiguing. These lyricists and romantics aro in little danger, it" may bee of the pitfalls that waylay tho plodders, but in their love of ran 0 altitudo they aro in constant danger of "falling upward, as it wore, into vacuity." As a corrective to this, how many simple souls must have thought of thb common-senso Doctor (oh, for an hour of holiest Sam. Johnson 1), only to bo put off by that aggressively insistent phrase of Macaulay's, "It would bo' difficulty to name a more slovenly, a more worthless edition of any great classic" than Johnson's of Shakespeare. It was in 11(03, in his "Eighteenth Century Essay on Shakespeare," that Mr. Nicliol Smith first discovered that neither Macaulay nor his accreditors can ha.ve ever honestly worked and tested tho edition in question. Johnson's pioneer remark as to the relativity of the folios alone is sufficient to convince an impartial reader that this conclusion is a justifiable one. Who, for instance, that has worked upon tho folios will fail to recognise the guinea stamp upon this romark in Johnsoil's preface? Theobald "speaks sometimes indefinitely of copies, when he'has only one. In his enumeration' of editions he mentions the 1 two first folios, as of high, and the third folio as'of middle, authority; but the tiiiih is that-the first-is equivalent to all others, and that tho rest only deviate from it by the printer's negligence. Wlioover has any of the folios has all, excepting those diversities which mero reiteration of editions will produce. I collated them all at the beginning, but afterwards used only the first." This is the_ very ecstasy of sobriety—the supremo i -distinction of Johnson's edition, which* leads;, the .newest criticism to 3ay tuat wo may' neglect tho earlier eighteenth century editions of Shakespeare, but flint if wo neglect Johnson's we shall do so at our peril. The head .and front of Johnson's offending, as Professor Raleigh points out, was that he wrote and spoke of Snakospeare as one man may fitly speak of anothor. He claimed for himsolf citizenship of that republic in which Shakespeare is admittedly pre-eminent. He dared to say that Shakespeare was at times slovenly, or even absurd, and that he scamped his last acts. From the most worthless material the romantics will "fashion a new hasty altar to an unknown God." Jthnson refuses to burn his morsel of incense on this Julian's, a.ltar. Tho romantics may give us a thrill on a good day, when the'v are genuinely in the vein. But you cannot be sure of them. . "Thoso who approach tho study of Shakespeare under the sober and vigorous guidance of Johnson will meet with fewer exciting adventures, but they will not, see' loss of the subject." Tho conclusion we draw from these various ■ coincidences is that, upon-the threshold of a new century, Shakespeare criticism is in tho process of giving itself a good shake. The microscope and the megaphone seem to have had their day (for the moment), and what we wnnt is a little' plain talk—Johnson's in preference to most. Sha.kespeare, as Lamb' said, is "a manly author," and Johnson's is essentially a manly criticism, man to man. Some recommond small doses of the plain text, Shakespeare's own. Alone with Shakespeare I Think of it—it might well give the imagination a start.—"The Nation."