Part II of the New Shakspere Society's Transactions for

1874 — this numerical exhibit would seem to give us beyond doubt a keen glimpse into the process of Shak- spere's mind as regards versification. It seems clear that up to a certain point he avoided the weak-ending line in making his verse ; and that at that point, about Macbeth or a little earlier, he entirely changed his opinion about it, and thereafter permitted himself to use the weak-ending line with perfect freedom. This result we might, indeed, have looked for. The weak-ending line is, as we just now saw, only one species of run-on line ; and the same process
234 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
in his mind which led him to use the run-on line with more and more freedom must have led him to use the weak-ending line with like freedom.
Let us now advance to the fourth of our Metrical Tests, that called the double-ending test. The nature of the double-ending line may be precisely seen by comparing one with the musical notation of a normal or single-ending line, which I have here made. For example :
IA| ^1 ^1 ^1 ^
p r U r U r U r U r
In miud - en med • i • U • tion tan - cj free
is a normal line, ending in the single quarter-note " free." But
H c r U f U r U r U S 5 I
This wide chapp'd ras - cal, woald thoa mightst lie drown - ing
difFers from it strikingly, you observe, in the last bar. Here we find the quarter-note is split into its two equiva- lent eighth-notes, and the bar has three sounds in it instead of two. In other words, this is a double-ending line. Notice that the last sounds need not be syllables of the same word, but may be two independent words. This we see in the next lines :
OH! I HAVE SUFFERED
A| ^1 ^1 ^1 ^ I
f r h r U r h r U c M
With those that I saw saf - fer: a brave ves - sel
Who had, no doubt, some no - ble crea - tares in her
The line ending in " vessel " shows the double ending as two syllables of the same word, while the next shows it as two words — " in her." Note, then, that just like the dis- use of rime, just like the run-on line, just like the weak- ending line, the double-ending line is a variation of the normal form y is a departure from regularity of structure in
THE METRICAL TESTS 235
the verse. Regularity of structure demands the normal bar, which is a bar of two sounds bearing to each other the relations of duration and intensity indicated by these musi- cal signs : but the double-ending line shows us this normal type of bar departed from, so as to offer the ear three sounds instead of two in the bar. Note, too, that this departure is made at what we may fairly call the most prominent point in the whole line, namely, the last bar in the line. For since in every normal end-stopped line a pause is made after this last bar, for the purpose of mark- ing off for the ear the group of bars contained in that line, the ear gets in the habit of listening for that bar, and thus any variation in that bar is more pronounced than it would be at any other point of the verse-structure.
These considerations are enough to show that the dou- ble ending is a very striking innovation upon the normal rhythmic movement, and that any verse in which double- ending lines should be frequent would present a very strik- ing characteristic, as opposed to verse in which it was rare.
When, therefore, we come to apply this test like the others to Shakspere's verse, and find — as we might natu- rally expect from what has gone before — that the plays shown to be late by the other tests are also shown to be late by this test, we are driven to confess that the evidence is accumulating in a way that sets up a strong probability in favour of this general scheme of chronology. To give some exact determination of these matters : according to the table of double endings prepared by Mr. Fleay, there are in Loves Labour's Lost only 9 double endings; in Midsummer Night's Dream there are 29 ; in Two Gentlemen of Verona we advance to 203 ; in As Tou Like It to 2 1 1 ; when we get into the second period Macbeth shows us 299, Hamlet 508, and Othello 646 double endings; while when we come to the third period Cymbeline yields
236 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
us 726 double endings and The Tempest (with about 1^00 less lines in its total than CymbeHne^ nevertheless) yields 476 double endings. The steady advance here is most striking ; and when we compare the extremes, taking an early play like the Midsummer Night's Dream with only 29 double endings and opposing it to The Tempest with its 476, we are certainly confronted by a very notable change in Shakspere's versification.
And here let us pause a moment to note one curious feature in Shakspere's use of the double ending, remark- ably illustrating that enormous self-control of his which I shall have occasion to develope in the next lecture. While it is true that Shakspere gradually found so much more freedom in using the double-ending line that his late play Cymbeline shows us the enormous disproportion of 726 double endings when compared with his early play Love's Labour s Losty which has only 9 — while, I say, the double ending thus evidently grew in its charm for him, yet note that it never ran away with him, as it did with some other poets of his time. The significance of this remark will come out if we compare Shakspere's em- ployment of the double ending with that of a famous dramatist who had the honour of being part author with Shakspere in one of his greatest plays, and perhaps in others — I mean John Fletcher. A short tinie ago an English scholar who has great faith in the Metrical Tests, the same Mr. Fleay, carefully examined, with reference to the double endings, a number of plays written by Fletcher alone, including several thought to be written by him, but not known by positive evidence to be so, the whole number of Fletcher plays being seventeen. Upon counting the double endings the following results ap- peared — and as I read oflT two or three of these deter- minations, compare the least of them with the greatest
John Fletcher
A
T!
r K
THE METRICAL TESTS 237
number of double endings in any of Shakspere's plays : in Fletcher's phy of Custom of the Country were found 1,756 double endings; in Women Pleased appeared 1,823; in Wild Goose Chase appeared i ,949 ; in the Humorous Lieu- tenant 2,193; ^^^ ^^ ^-^^ L(yyal Subject 2,266 double endings.
These figures show us unmistakably how a peculiarity of versification like the double-ending line can take hold of a writer's artistic taste, much as tobacco can take hold of his physical taste, and can grow into an inexorable habit. Now when we compare these thousands of Fletcher's double endings with the modest scores and hundreds of Shakspere, we come face to face with that manful control and balance in artistic matters which we shall presently find ruling in just the same way over Shakspere's whole moral conduct.
While we are thus comparing Shakspere's and Fletcher's employment of the double ending, let us take the appro- priate occasion to see how the Metrical Tests are applied to other important matters besides determinations of chronology. Consider, for example, the recent investiga- tions into the play of King Henry Vllly which would seem not only to have settled quite conclusively that the play was written by Shakspere and Fletcher, but to have separated with great accuracy the precise scenes and lines which were written by Fletcher from those which were written by Shakspere. Now in this determination the double-ending metrical test was used with singular effect in reducing to exactness such vague opinions as were before held on this matter. It had been before suspected by several writers that in this play of King Henry VIII another hand was discernible besides Shakspere's. Per- haps the most interesting citation I could make in this connection is from our own Ralph Waldo Emerson. That
238 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
deep-seeing eye had detected a great difFerence between parts of King Henry Fill in artistic construction. In his essay on Shakspere, in Representative Men, Mr. Emer- son says : " In Henry VHI I think I see plainly the crop- ping out of the original rock on which his [Shakspere's] own finer stratum was laid." These parts of it were " written by a superior thoughtful man with a vicious ear. I can mark his lines, and know well their cadence. The lines are constructed on a given tune." Here, Emerson does not seem to have suspected Fletcher ; but how inimitably do his words describe that dramatist — "a superior thoughtful man with a vicious ear ! " Fletcher, however, had been conjectured as the co- writer by others as long ago as 1850. In that year Mr. Spedding pub- lished a paper in which many considerations were adduced to show Fletcher's part in Henry Vllly and this was fol- lowed by an independently worked out judgment of Mr. Samuel Hickson's, published in Notes and ^eries during the same year.
But these judgments were necessarily more or less vague, because depending more or less upon that variable element between individuals which astronomers call the personal equation; and at this point the Metrical Tests come in with most satisfactory efFect to confirm previous conclusions with great exactness. You remember that we just now found from Mr. Fleay's table of the double endings in a group of Fletcher's plays that the num- bers ringed 1,700, 1,900, 2,000, and so on. Now it involved only the work of adding up all these figures for each play and dividing the total by the number of plays to get an average of double endings which might be con- sidered fairly characteristic of Fletcher's work when taken in connection with the total number of verse-lines considered. Such an average was found to be 1,777, and
THE METRICAL TESTS 239
this number then became — as you easily see — a sort of graph or sign-manual of Fletcher, so that in going through the play of Henry VIII it was almost as if many passages were enclosed in brackets and signed with Fletcher's name.
By using the double-ending test, — particularly with reference to a peculiarity of Fletcher's in this connection which I could not explain here without going into too much technical detail, — and by checking such conclu- sions with other tests and with various more general con- siderations of style and matter, the respective scenes, passages, and even lines of Shakspere and Fletcher in the play of Henry VIII have been sorted out with a minute- ness which is truly interesting. The metrical and other tests, employed in such number and variety, constitute a kind of sieves or screens like those employed in the coal- yards to sort out the different sizes of coal — separating here the big Shakspere lump in one bin, there the smaller Fletcher lump in another, and so on.
While in this connection I ought to mention that the play of The Two Noble Kinsmeny which is usually put into the back part of our ordinary editions of Shakspere and classed as a doubtful play, has also been, as one might say, chemically treated with the Metrical Tests, particularly with the average double-ending test just now described, with the result of confirming in the most satisfactory man- ner judgments based on other considerations ; and perhaps we may fairly consider not only that Shakspere is now established to be part author of The Two Noble Kinsmen^ — the other being Fletcher, — but that we know with much accuracy every passage which is Shakspere's and every passage which is Fletcher's throughout the play.
And now let us pass on to the fifth and last metrical test to which I have proposed to invite your notice. Consider this fourth bar in the line
240 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
*U r I c f U f U f U r M
With those that I saw suf - fer: a brave ves • sel
Remembering that, as we often saw in studying rhythm, the musical sign a represents the rhythmical accent, here you see that the rhythmical accent falls upon a word which does not take an accent in ordinary speech : we would not say.
With those that I saw suffer : a brave vessel,
but "a brave vessel." Of course every one, however little acquainted with versecraft, knows that the normal method by which the verse-maker indicates the point where the rhythmic accent should fall in his verse is to arrange words which have a certain well-known accentua- tion in our ordinary speech in such a manner that each syllable taking the ordinary accent falls at the place where the rhythmic accent is intended to be. Thus in writing,
In maiden meditation, fancy free,
the poet indicates to us that the rhythmic accent must fall upon " maid-," " med-," " fan-," etc., by so arranging the words of which these syllables are part that the voice puts the accent at those points where it would fall in ordinary speech.
This seems simple enough when thus approached; and you might wonder at even so much preliminary de- tail about accent if it were not stated that this subject has been hopelessly confused by some of the most earnest and otherwise successftil Shakspere scholars through the failure to discriminate between the different sorts of accent which are in ordinary use among English-speaking people. The value of such a discrimination will appear if I briefly recall to your minds a clear conception of at least three wholly
THE METRICAL TESTS 241
difFerent phenomena which are all termed "accent." There are several more; but these will suffice for the matter now in hand.
In ordinary English speech every word of more than one syllable is pronounced with an unequal intensity upon some special syllable; and this syllable thus accented is fixed in each word. Thus content^ admirable^ etc., where the syllables con- and ad- are clearly differentiated from their neighbours by .their relative intensity. Let us call this the pronunciation accent, for the sake of distinction. But, again, we have a distinct accent from this, exercising a wholly different function in our speech. That is the logical accent, which we place upon every important word in a sentence. This accent, you see, concerns the whole word in its relation to its neighbouring words, not a syllable in relation to neighbouring syllables. Thus we say : " Did you want this book or that book?" when the logical an- tithesis between this and that is indicated by their respective accents — this accent, mark, consisting not only of a rela- tive variation in intensity but also of a variation in pitch. The voice is perceptibly not only more forcible but higher on this than on that in the given sentence. Let us, then, call this the logical or word accent, in distinction from the other, the pronunciation or syllable accent.
But, again, there is a third accent, differing entirely in function from these two ; that is, the rhythmic accent, which is common to both poetry and music, and which plays exactly the same part in every piece of verse as in every piece of music. This part is to point off the whole series of sounds for the ear into those equal groups which are called bars. In every musical composition it is under- stood that the first note in each bar, no matter what may be its pitch or duration or tone-colour, is to be singled out by a slight increase in its intensity, so that the ear instantly
242 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
recognises the boundaries of each bar as the piece is played, and is thus able to coordinate bar with bar throughout the whole piece. This is the rhythmic determinant of every musical piece, this recurrence of the rhythmic accent at exactly equal intervals of time upon the first tone in each bar. Now each bar in a line of poetry is in exactly the same way indicated to the ear by including its beginning and its terminus between two slight variations in intensity which mark its first tone and the first tone of the next bar. Without such a system of marks the rhythms which we call trochaic, iambic, etc., would be marked oflT with much less distinctness to the ear. But note, as of paramount importance in this particular test we are now studying, that just as the place of the rhythmic accent in any bar of music may be changed for a moment from the first note in the bar to any other note in it, and that this change is often made, in one bar or two bars, simply for the purpose of variety, — of breaking up the monotonous succession of bar after bar, all accented on the same corresponding note, — so in verse the same breaking of the bar-monotony occurs when the verse-maker, instead of placing a syllable which takes the pronunciation accent or a word which takes the logical accent (" maid-," and " free ") in the rhythmically accented place of the bar, allows a syllable or word (" a brave vessel ") to fall in that place which does not take the other accent in ordinary speech. In music a special sign is used to indicate this change, and in read- ing the notes, the musician, when he sees that sign, does not accent the first note in the bar, but accents the note which has the sign over it. Please note that in verse, as in music, the effect of this changing the relative place of the rhythmic accent is to vary the rhythmic pattern set up by the general systematic recurrence of this accent at the beginning of the bar, where the ear has learned to look
THE METRICAL TESTS 243
for It. It is instructive, for the use presently to be made of all this discussion of metrical tests, to note how precisely parallel is this variation of monotony by change in accent with that variation of monotony which we just now saw effected by the double ending. Then, when the ear had learned to look for two sounds in each bar, — and particu- larly for two sounds and a pause in that special bar which terminates the line, — we found that Shakspere more and more tended to give three sounds in that bar — that is, the double-ending line — in order to vary the bar-struc- ture agreeably from its rigid form.
I have thought it worth while thus to discriminate the true function of the rhythmic accent as distinguished from the pronunciation accent and the logical accent, specially be- cause one of the greatest modern scholars has founded a whole theory of blank verse upon what is clearly a confu- sion of these accents, with the result of arriving at conclu- sions which are wholly absurd as to their general effect, and which as to their special effect would rob Shakspere's verse of its most wonderful and subtle features.
If, then, regularity of verse-structure is determined by the regular recurrence of the rhythmic accent on a given note in each bar, and if a temporary change in the place of the accent would tend to relieve the monotony of the rhythmic flow, we should expect to find, from what has been revealed of Shakspere's progress by the other tests, that he became more and more fond in his later plays of placing such unimportant words as tf, /», of^ the^ etc., in the accented place of the bar, so as in effect to change the accent by throwing the voice upon some more important word or syllable.
Here I am not able to present you with any exact reductions to numbers, as in the case of the other metrical tests we have studied. The possibility of such a test as
244 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
this rhythmic accent test occurred to me last summer while writing a work on English verse ; but other press- ing occupations have prevented that patient count which would have to be made by taking every line in Shakspere's plays, applying it to this normal type of blank verse, and setting down every time where an unimportant word like J, in, they or the like fell under the place of the rhythmic accent. The importance of such a test would be very great. Without now taking time to detail the special technical value of this rhythmic accent test, it is easy to infer its general value by considering that necessarily the degree of probability established by these evidences in- creases, not in arithmetical ratio, but in a more than geo- metrical ratio with every new test. The evidence, you observe, is cumulative : the eflfect of every new test is not only to multiply the probability as many times as there are tests in all, but much more.
We have now considered the special function of our five Metrical Tests in determining the relative dates of Shakspere plays ; and so many cautions have already been given in various connections with each one that it is not necessary to do more, in summing up our conclusions, than to say that, while no one or two or more metrical tests must be pushed to over-minute determinations in settling the place of a play within small limits, — that is, while we must carefully avoid over-minuteness in applying them, — on the other hand, we can make them of very high value in checking other conclusions and in setting up broadly discriminated periods in Shakspere's artistic growth.
And now let us assume a higher point of view, and regard the general revelation, made to us by all the Metri- cal Tests, of the line of Shakspere's advance as an artist in verse-making. It is at this point that we can see the line of his artistic advance uniting with that of his moral
THE METRICAL TESTS 245
advance; and we can now efFect a complete junction between the two trains of discussion, embracing so many details.
For consider the general line of artistic tendency in Shakspere, which all the Metrical Tests we have studied agree in disclosing, (i) We found that he tended more and more, from the early plays to the late ones, to disuse rime ; and since the rime recurring at the end of each line is a very striking method of marking off a regular line- group for the ear, of impressing a regular pattern of fives upon the ear, the disuse of rime is clearly an advance towards freedoftty towards the relief from monotony y towards the greater display of individuality in verse.
(2) If you carry this on to the next test you find it showing a precisely similar advance towards freedom by another particular of verse-construction. We found that the end-stopped line, just like the rime, marked off the end of each line very strikingly for the ear by the pause which comes after it, and thus made a regular grouping of fives ; while the run-on line broke up this regular grouping by running one line into another, and thus relieved the monot- ony of the rhythm ; and thus the clear and notable increase in the number of run-on lines in the late plays simply rep- resented the same progress towards freedom, towards indi- viduality, towards relief from monotony, which the disuse of rime indicated.
(3) Then the weak-ending test, which was simply a species of run-on line, showed us, by the great increase of weak endings in the late plays over the early ones, the same progress towards relief from monotony, towards free- dom, towards individuality.
(4) Then the double-ending test, with its 476 occur- rences — that is, 476 variations of the normal bar — in The Tempesty contrasted with only 29 such variations in the
246 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
Midsummer Night* s Dream, showed us exactly the same tendency towards variations of monotonous regularities, towards freedom, towards individuality.
(5) And finally the changes of the normal rhythmic accent, which are certainly far more numerous in The Tem- pest than in ^ Midsummer Night^s Dream, exhibit the same artistic growth. But now, on the other hand, mark carefully that these departures towards freedom are not wild, like Fletcher's ; Shakspere in the later plays still uses rime, still has the greater number of his lines regular or end-stopped, still has the greater number of his endings normal instead of abnormally weak or double, still has the greater number of his rhythmic accents in the normal regu- lar places instead of the abnormal irregular places. In other words, the artistic advance towards freedom is a con- trolled temperate advance, in which the law of verse, the regularity of verse-structure, is preserved reverently, while it is mereJy varied with the occasional departures.
In short, Shakspere's general advance is clearly a more artistic balancing of the oppositions which constitute verse; and this idea enables us now to present a perfectly clear statement of that artistic advance in terms of our theory of oppositions, and thus to bring out this artistic advance as only one side of his general moral advance.
For this purpose, let us place these oppositions of regularity and irregularity, of monotony and variety, — upon the artistic balancing of which the whole music of verse depends, — let us place, I say, these oppositions on the sides of our opposition diagram, to which they belong. You will remember that through a great variety of details and principles, accumulating from lecture to lec- ture, we have climbed to a point of view which commands the whole field of form so far as to show in parallel lines a poem as a form in art, a generalisation as form in science, a
THE METRICAL TESTS 247
balanced character as form in morals or behaviour; and we have found the principle of opposition underlying this matter in every one of its widely differing phases, from the opposition of forces which cause the minute rhythms of sound and light and the great rhythms of the periodic planets, to those oppositions of verse-structure, rime and no rime, end-stopped line and run-on line, sin- gle-ending and double-ending, and the like, which we have just seen Shakspere using to make his verse good ; and finally to those oppositions in the moral structure of things which every man must balance in order to make his character good. Now let us recur to those limiting terms of this universal opposition which form vanishing- points into which all the lines of man's activity, spiritual, physical, artistic, moral activity, must run ; let us, I say, recur to these terms, and set before our eyes the artistic advance of Shakspere revealed by the Metrical Tests in similar terms. Here, starting with the fundamental terms of opposition. Form and Chaos, and using no more of the list than necessary for the present purpose, we have in na- ture, as including all forms.
Form Chaos
and correlatively in those forms produced by drawing a scientific induction.
Generalisation Detail
and correlatively in those forms connected with character,
Law Freedom
Regularity Irregularity
Love Self
Not-me Me
248 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
and since the me is what we are immediately conscious of, the not'tne intermediately, we have the correlative
Possible Actual
and these give us clearly the
Ideal Real
and so on. Now let us put our metrical matters into this same nomenclature : We find that the rime is the regular element in verse, and that Shakspere balances it with its opposite irregular element, and we have as regularity ele- ment.
Rime used Rime disused
and similar
End-stopped Line Run-on Line
Strong-ending Line Weak-ending Line
Single-ending Line Double-ending Line
Regular Accent Irregular Accent
Here we have the task of the three next and concluding lectures of this course marked out plainly before our eyes. It is proposed to prove (i) that the very same advance which has been revealed by the Metrical Tests between the beginning and the end of Shakspere's career in his verse- technic is clearly revealed to us in his character ; (2) that just as we saw Shakspere more artistically balancing the necessary oppositions of verse-structure in The Tempesty 1 610, than in the Midsummer Night^s Dreamy 1590, so we can clearly see him more artistically balancing those oppo- sitions in life and in morals which go to make up charac- ter-structure if we rightly investigate his utterances; in short, that Shakspere's advance in art and his advance in
THE METRICAL TESTS
249
morals is one and the same growth, resulting in this direc- tion as a finer verse-structure, in that direction as a finer character-structure.
And now, to prove this theorem, let us take the Mid- summer Night's Dreamy which we can prove by all sorts of evidence, positive, indirect, external, internal, metrical tests, higher tests, and all, to represent Shakspere's first period, and let us contrast this with ^he Tempesty which we can prove nearly as conclusively to represent his last period. Note that never were two ends of an artist's life so beautifully framed for a contrast as these two plays. It will give definite direction to our appreciation of this if we reflect (as outlined in a previous lecture) that there are three comprehensive directions in which we may trace a man's view of the world : in the direction of the lower, that is, his views of man's relations towards nature ; the level direction, that is, his views of man's relations towards his fellow-man ; and the higher direction, that is, his views of man's relations towards God.
God
Nature
Fellow-man
?i59S
1602
1610
Dream Period
Real Period
Ideal Period
Midsummer Nighfs Dream
Hamlet
The Tempest
Now it so happens that these two plays. Midsummer Nighfs Dream and The Tempest^ contain just the material for deducing Shakspere's ideas upon these points. In both we have man's relation towards nature, — nature
250 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
tricksy in the Puck and Oberon of the one, nature con- quered and drawing water for man in the allayed tempest and the monster servant Caliban of the other ; again, the Midsummer Night's Dream shows us man's relations to man in the twist and cross of love which never runs smooth (this famous quotation is from the Midsummer Night's Dream)j while ^he Tempest shows us the same re- lations to one's fellow-men in the affairs of power, of ambi- tion, of state, of fetherhood, of love, of forgiveness, and so on. And, to make their fitness for comparison grow to the exquisite degree, both these plays are a sort of fairy- tales, admitting unbounded freedom of treatment and un- shackled by any such considerations of time or place or environment as would prevent Shakspere from giving his full and untrammelled utterance.
In the next three lectures, then, we will see what we can find of Shakspere's opinions in these three great relations of man. And finally, if this discussion shall then be allowed to have made out its case, if we shall then find this artistic and moral advance thus inseparable, we may recognise that supreme value of the poet which was posited at the beginning of these lectures. For we must then find that it is he who balances these terrible oppositions of life, balances them, not in ignorance, not by shutting his eyes upon them, but by that enormous fiiith which, seeing them, is not dismayed. It is he, the poet, who moves with level eye down this lane of life hedged about with these mysteries, and keeps Love and Reconciliation alive with art and music. It is our Shakspere who, when we find him, after his dream of Youth here, after his terrible shock with the Real here in Hamlet y — using his art to allay tempests and to bring all things right and to set forth Prospero's prodigious forgiveness of his brother's injury, —
THE METRICAL TESTS
251
it is our Shakspere who then makes us cry, amid the heart- breaking perplexities of life's oppositions and complex antagonisms, Sursum corda ! Here is a poet who met these oppositions and managed them ; and do but listen to our Shak- spere singing in the dark !