as he says, Art itself is a part of Nature, and all means that better Nature are made by her, which Jonson took as if meant for him, and in the Preface to the Reader, in his next play, resented accordingly.

From July to November the theatres were again closed on account of the plague, for the last time until the coming of the present King. At this time, in August, as Jonson has been careful to tell us in the play itself, he wrote his 'Alchemist,' and finding the disease so hot that it was unlikely to be played, would have it published in October; but before it came to press, about the end of November (for he was always slow in such things, though quick enough in making when the fit was on him), the number of deaths falling below forty, he stayed it, and would have it acted. Now just at that time Shakespeare was minded to leave play-making and play-acting; and we had his last play in our hands for reading before presentment. So we, casting about for some one to succeed him, and finding that Beaumont and Fletcher were busied for the Queen's Revels boys, and Webster for the Queen's men (though in the next year or two all these men came over to us), could find no one so fitting as Jonson to stop the gap. We accordingly treated for the play, and acted it in December. But Shakespeare would by no means take part in the action; and when Jonson published it two years after, he retained the Address to the Reader, in which he inveighed against dances and antics, and those who contemn art but, to gain opinion of being copious, utter all they can, all which being manifestly meant for our poet, — of whom, when alluding to what we said, that "we had received scarce a blot in his papers," he malevolently wished that he had blotted out a thousand lines, — might have been, methinks, as well omitted. But in the play itself there was not a line concerning Shakespeare. It was not till he had again left us and was writing for the rebuilt Bear Garden that he scoffed on the stage at Tales and Tempests, servant monsters, and nests of antics and drolleries, where one man's head was mixed with other men's heels. Nor was it till Shakespeare had been many years dead that he said he had loved him to idolatry. We knew both men; and though we admired Ben's rare learning, and thought his

plays held the second place of all in our time brought on the stage, we ever preferred our true gentleman to the envious courtier; and yet some men say that we got Jonson to write our Preface to our Folio. What! Has he not jeered at it himself?

Just before this, Shakespeare, who had in June been making a further purchase of twenty acres of arable land at Stratford, gave us his last play, 'The Tempest.' It was about the first week in November that the deaths fell below forty, namely, on the eighth; and on that very day was issued from the press a tract called 'The True Declaration of the Colony of Virginia.' In this the tempest of 1609, in which Sir F. Gates and others were nigh wrecked on the Bermudas, was described as a ' Tragical Comedy.' Now this is the true designation of Shakespeare's later plays, although we, having used but three heads for all, were fain to rate 'The Winter's Tale' and The Tempest' comedies, and 'Cymbeline' a tragedy. And it was on this very storm that Shakespeare plotted his play. Some things in it he took from Eden's History of Travel,' somewhat from Montaigne's Essays; but the finest touches were from Jourdain's 'Discovery of the Bermudas,' published about a month before we acted the play. It was greatly liked at Court; and two years after we presented it, not only to the Palatine and his bride, the Princess Elizabeth, but also to the King. On the occasion of the royal marriage we got Master Beaumont to insert a masque (with music and songs suiting the festivity of the time, and much like unto the masque by him then presented by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple) in place of the dumb show, as Shakespeare had left it. This made the whole performance too long; and we were perforce compelled to omit some of the scenes, especially the character of the Duke of Milan's son, of whom there is now left but a bare mention. Some men may blame us for not giving, in all these plays as published in our Folio, the full text thereof, as written by the poet; but they can only do so in ignorance of the great losses we had at the burning of our theatre, when many copies of our plays were destroyed; only those in the hands of the bookholder, as then in action, having been saved from the fire. And yet I do not think that in more than three plays-that is to say, in 'Macbeth,' which was pieced

out afterward by Middleton; this present one; and 'Henry VIII.,' of which I have yet to speak-have any of the lines of Shakespeare been lost in this way. For it was not until the liking for music and show had grown up at Court, being fostered by the continual production of masques, as presented by the lords and ladies themselves, that these abbreviations became necessary, to keep the time occupied in the performance within reasonable bounds. In earlier times we had never shortened our plays but for performances in the country on our travels.

We performed fifteen plays at Court this Christmas. Thereafter Shakespeare left us and went to live at Stratford as a country gentleman. In the next year we were hard put to it to replace him. Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, and Webster, all wrote for us, and their best plays too; but the loss was not to be so made up. At Christmas we presented two and twenty plays at Court, and the next Christmas, eight and twenty. In order to show how we were still depending on revivals of Shakespeare, I will here set down a list of twenty plays, as we presented them in the Christmas of 1612. To the Lady Elizabeth and the Palatine Elector, these by Shakespeare: 'Much Ado About Nothing,' 'The Tempest,' 'The Winter's Tale,' 'Sir John Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor,' 'The Moor of Venice,' and 'Cæsar's Tragedy,' six in all; by Beaumont and Fletcher: Philaster,' 'The Maid's Tragedy,' 'A King and no King,' and 'Philaster,' once again, under its new name of 'Love lies a-bleeding,' three in all; by Drayton, 'The Merry Devil of Edmonton;' by Turner, The Nobleman;' by Nicols, 'The Twins' Tragedy;' and by I know not whom, 'The Knot of Fools.' Then to the King these by Shakespeare: 'The Hotspur; or, Henry IV. ;'' Benedick and Bettris; or, Much Ado About Nothing;' by Jonson, 'The Alchemist;' by Beaumont and Fletcher, The Captain and Cardenas; or, Love's Pilgrimage;' and by the concealed author, 'The London Prodigal,' under the name of 'A Bad Beginning makes a Good Ending.' So that wellnigh half our performances were still from Shakespeare.

(To be concluded.)

F. G. Fleay.

HOW TO STUDY TENNYSON'S 'IN MEMORIAM.'

In his recent volume, 'Tennyson and "In Memoriam,"'* Mr. Joseph Jacobs has given a most interesting example in his study of 'In Memoriam' of the objective method of studying a poem. He has, however, overlooked one very important line of investigation, which, as I shall attempt to show, is the principal raison d'être of objective study, and one which puts the critic in a position to exercise to the best advantage his subjective faculties of criticism. Mr. Jacobs' plan of procedure is much like that followed by POET-LORE in its outline studies of poetry; but as every poem demands some variation in its treatment, it will not be out of place to give here an outline of his method. He divides the study of the poem into two main heads, Analytical and Comparative. The main subdivisions under the first head are Form and Matter. In studying the form, there are, of course, a number of things to be observed, the metre used, the rhymes, whether good, bad, or indifferent, how frequently alliteration is employed, the philological value of the vocabulary, the changes made by the poet in various editions, then the general style and beauty, including the choice of words, the figures, and finally the effect produced in the artistic combining of all these elements, found by Mr. Jacobs to be grace and power. The author has given very fully the results of his studies of the form of 'In Memoriam,' pointing out the bad rhymes, of which he finds one in every nine, and also giving lists of the metaphors, personifications, and so on, used. Under the division, Matter, are considered the object, the development, and the matter analysis of the poem, besides the philosophy, which includes psychology, ethics, sociology, metaphysics, and theology, with an appendix on the dates when the various portions of the poem were written. Under the second main head, Comparative, are considered the resemblances of the form and matter with Tennyson elsewhere, and the influences which are to be observed

* Tennyson and 'In Memoriam,' by Joseph Jacobs. London: David Nutt. 1892.

in him from the English, Classic, and Italian poets, and then the relation of his thought to that of Kant through Coleridge, of Dar

finally, the influence of 'In It is under this second main Mr. Jacobs' only aim in the

win and various other thinkers, and Memoriam' on poetry and thought. division that something is lacking. comparison with other poets is to trace their influence on Tennyson both as to matter (not motive, be it observed) and as to form; but this sort of comparison deals only with resemblances, and while a very interesting branch of comparative study, is, to my mind, by no means the chief one. It is like studying the environment and the inheritance of an individual, without giving any attention whatever to the individual, or to the central fact upon which these factors work. In the case of 'In Memoriam' the central fact, the main motive, underlying even the "subject-matter," which is, after all, a part of the form, is the emotion of grief in the human heart; and the chief end in a comparative study of this poem should be to investigate how the emotion of grief has manifested itself in other poetry which treats of the same theme, whether there has been a growth or a deterioration in the intensity of the emotion, whether the differences in the expression are merely external, the result of the individuality of the poet himself, or of peculiar circumstances, or whether they result from the inevitable relations of the poet to his world environment.

The emotion of grief

It happens in the present instance that there is a remarkable series of poems based upon the emotion of grief, ranging from the Idyllic age of Greek poetry to the present. The first of these is the exquisite Lament for Adonis' by Bion. in this idyl is perfectly simple, and besides there shines through it plainly a cosmic element. The grief for the death of Adonis is renewed every year; thus it is not a lasting grief, but a grief which alternates with joy. The origin of the myth of Venus and Adonis in a worship of Nature should here be looked into, as it will explain the strange idea that Cytherea is to lament anew each year. It should be noted that the figures used in the idyl are everywhere suggestive of the death of Nature. The blood-drops of Adonis bring forth the rose, the tears of Venus the wind-flower. Every one knows how the wind-flower springs up in the damp ground of