SHAKESPEARE DILUTED.*
Mn. CANNING must, we fear, be pronounced an incurable book- maker of the most terrible type. So far, his product has in point of quantity been modest ; but from the first the true book- making quality has been painfully developed. He has devoted one volume to an unknown something which he calls, "The Philosophy of Charles Dickens ;" a second, if we are not mis- taken, to an equally unknown something called, "The Philo- sophy of Sir Walter Scott ;" a third consists of what we may call a Liebig's extract of the history and essays of Lord Macaulay ; and iow, here is a fourth volume, of nearly 400 pages, which is neither more nor less than a dilution—and a very weak and insipid dilution—of the historical plays of Shakespeare. It is absolutely impossible to think of any reader to whom such a book can be either interesting or useful, for all people who have read Shakespeare know everything that Mr. Canning has to tell them ; and the possible few to whom Shakespeare is as yet unknown will, if they are wise, take the plays "neat," instead of in Mr. Canning's mixture, which contains a great deal of water, no sugar to speak of, and certainly not enough of the Shakespearian spirit to make it in any way stimulating. We do not wish to speak with unnecessary severity, but there is no disguising the truth that this volume is so absolutely valueless, both to the student and general reader, that we should not notice it at all, were it not that it gives us a peg upon which to hang a protest against the growing class of books to which it belongs—books whose only mission is to torment the soul of the much-enduring critic.
The meaning of the word " thoughts " in Mr. Canning's title is an insoluble mystery ; for thoughts, as we understand them, are just the things for which we seek in vain. True, we are frequently treated to brief reflections on the action or the language of the plays; but we seek vainly for a single reflection which is not characterised either by irredeemable triteness or hopeless fatuity. On the general principle that in literature it is more agreeable to be startled than to be bored, we will not complain too strongly of the remarkable and probably unique statement that "Shakespeare's Macbeth is surely not a natural character"; indeed, we should be grateful if the dreary flow of common-place were more frequently broken by such erratic eddies. Unfortunately, however, the general tendency of Mr. Canning's thoughts is to induce somnolence rather than to excite surprise, and the following passage, which almost imme- diately precedes the verdict we have quoted, is in his most ,characteristic manner "Many assassinations and other crimes have been committed with a vague idea of doing evil that good might ensue. In Macbeth's • Thoughts on Shakespeare's Historical Plume. By the Hon. Albert S. G. Canning. Loudon : W. H. Allen and Co. position,, had he or his wife possessed redeeming qualities, they might have believed, or tried to believe, that King Duncan, though their benefactor, yet oppressed and misgoverned their country, and that they would rule the kingdom better. No such idea is ever mentioned ; they have no object whatever but to seize the govern- ment of Scotland, with its accompanying advantages and anticipated pleasures. For this purpose Macbeth, though at first reluctant, is induced by his wife to slay the king. He also kills two servants when asleep ; after which Lady Macbeth stains them with blood, she and her husband pretending that these attendants were induced by Prince Malcolm to kill his father, and that Macbeth slew them when he dis- covered they had murdered the king. Shakespeare vividly describes Macbeth as conscience-stricken and horrified before and after the murder. This account is imaginary, as history represents him quite a different man ; while Holinshed's legends, which are chiefly followed in the play, scarcely mention his state of mind."
And so on, and scion. If these sentences had been written as a school exercise by a lad of fourteen, we should say they had more of moral propriety than of intellectual promise ; coming as they do from a full-grown man, who deliberately offers them and their like as a contribution to critical literature, they suggest no words of comment, save interjections of mournful astonishment.
It will have been seen that, contrary to usual custoih, Mr. Can- ning ranks Macbeth among the historical plays, while Julius Ccesar and Antony and Cleopatra also find places in his volume. There is, perhaps, no unanswerable objection to this ; but when the two latter plays are included, the omission of Cori olanus, which is as purely historical, looks either whimsical or careless, and is probably the latter, for care is not one of Mr. Canning's strong points—witness his constant mis-spelling' of the title of a frequently-quoted authority, the masterly study of Professor Dowden. And, while speaking of authorities, we may protest against the very undiscriminating and unscholarly way in which Mi. Canning uses them,—his way, for example, of quoting from Hume, Hallam, and Green, as if their evidence on historical points were of equal weight. Hume, indeed, seems to be Mr. Canning's favourite witness, and is referred to with great warmth of appreciation as a " learned " and " profound " writer ; whereas, now-a-days, surely everyone knows that Hume lives as an historian, not in virtue of his learning or profundity—for, indeed, his history possesses neither—but solely in virtue of a narrative style, which for lucidity and grace has seldom been equalled, and, perhaps, never excelled.
These, however, are trifles, and had Mr. Canning's work been in any way valuable, they would not seriously have detracted from, its value. Readers must judge for themselves as to what can be the possible worth of a large volume upon the historical plays of Shakespeare, which contains absolutely nothing but a series of bald summaries, broken at short intervals 'by arbi- trarily chosen quotations, and at longer intervals by reflections similar to the specimen which we have given above. The utter dreariness of the book cannot be attributed either wholly or in great part to its subject. It may not be easy to say anything concerning it that has not been said before, but Mr. Canning might certainly have produced a book having much of real interest, if not of absolute novelty. He might, for example, have provided his younger readers with an admirable intro- duction to the study of literary criticism, by a recital and exposition of the reasons for doubting Shakespeare's author- ship of the whole or some portion of the first part of King Henry VI. He might also, by noting in some orderly manner Shakespeare's adhesions to and departures from the litera scripta of history, have thrown light on his general dramatic aim and method. He might have performed a task of still greater interest and value if be had pointed out how largely we are indebted to these very plays for our impressions of the range and limitations of Shakespeare's sympathies, and shown how marked were his aristocratic prejudices, how complete his eontempt for the populace, bow overmastering his patriotic bias, how patent his respect for the old faith and his disrespect for the new Puritanism which was soon to achieve such a decisive victory over it. On such themes and others closely related to them Mr. Canning might have discoursed with profit to his readers ; but he is a Gallio who cares for none of these things, and the most superficial diagnosis finds in this indiffer- ence an unmistakeable symptom of the disease of incompetence. It gives us no pleasure to speak thus of this or of any work ; but it would give ns much of that righteous and enduring satis- faction which is better than any pleasure, if words of ours could produce even the least effect on that increasingly large number of writers who confound facile scribbling with the serious pursuit of literature; who, instead of giving us anything new, merely
dilute and spoil the old ; and who rob us of our life by a reck- less waste of "the stuff that life is made of."
Previous page
