1

66

instead of the angler who kills "for
the fun of the thing"? Yet when
the otter kills fish, the poets are up in
arms for the poor fish ; when the angler
does the same, they sneer and giggle
at the fish. But of course the otter
eats what man wants to eat himself;
so the otter is anathema. Or the fox.
This truly charming little beast, which
the rich encourage to live amongst
their farmyards and to multiply for
their sport, is habitually an object of
detestation to poets. It is ruth-
less," " gaunt,"
," "noxious," "wicked,"
false," "greedy," "stinking," "ob-
scene,'
66 vagrant," "scoundrel fox,"
"felon," "knave," "villain," "nightly
robber," "abhorred alive, more loath-
some still when dead"! Why should
there be all this pother? Why? Be-
cause he has taken a chicken home to
feed his cubs and their suckling
mother. But chickens are the prop-
erty of man. So the poet exults over
the destruction of the fox, revels in its
horrible death, and applauds the fox-
hunters -as if they hunted the fox
because they wished to kill it for eating
chickens! -for their exploit. Why is
the tiger, again, so utterly abominable
for doing that which the lion does "by
sovereignty of nature"? Their lives
and objects are alike. Why should the
vulture be persistently (and quite
wrongfully) abused for that which in
the eagle is no offence?
All poets say

in sympathy with nature and ready to
acknowledge the good and beautiful,
even if it should approach him in such
questionable shape as "the deadly
owle," or a full-blown toad that
venom spits." It were an absurd pre-
tension that poets should study zoology
before they begin to write; but it is
surely the poetry that becomes absurd,
when writers, because the bird of par-
adise, "being legless," slept upon the
wing, go on to make it lay its eggs on
the wing and hatch them; or when the
porcupine, said to shoot its quills at its
assailants, is made to "whet them"
before attacking; or when they de-
scribe themselves as being enraptured
at seeing an azure kingfisher feasting
on amber berries, or at hearing sea-
gulls warbling on the main, or as
being shocked at beholding a cruel vul-
ture "spring from the cliff upon the
passing dove." And why should the
goldfinch and the butterfly be perpet-
ually twitted about their "gaiety," and
the latter be so often ungenerously told
that it is only a maggot masquerading,
and be called a harlot? What sympa-
thy is there with the beautiful in such
whimsical treatment of lovely little
creatures? Burns knew nothing of
natural history, but he does not abuse
the goshawk which he sees "drive on
the wheeling hare," and he speaks of
the field-mouse, no friend to him, with
the utmost tenderness. This feeling,
which he shares with all the "village "most charming things about larks and
poets and some of the greatest, is the doves and rabbits; but why, then, do
genuine universal sympathy, as distin- they congratulate trained falcons when
guished from the spurious and occa- they "souse" them and tear them to
sional, of which Tompson is a notable pieces? Have fishes no claims what-
exponent, and of which the great ma- ever to a poet's sympathy? The stu-
jority of poets stand in varying degrees dent will have to search far to find
convicted by their writings.
any appreciable quantity. Are reptiles
really such a disgrace to their Creator
as poets say? Why should "insects"
be "vermin"? The bee is magnified
because it makes honey and wax for
man. The silkworm is always compli-
mented upon its web. Wasps make
no honey for man, they are altogether
disreputable and vile. The spider
spins silk only for itself; it is there-
fore a favorite simile for Satan.

In many cases the treatment amounts to cruelty. What does the otter do that it should be so universally abused? It catches fish. What does the angler do that he should be so universally patted on the back? He catches fish. Now, can poets justify any distinction between the two, as affecting pitifulness for the fish? or, if they must make a distinction, why is it not in favor of the otter that kills from necessity,

-

Illustrations of these cruelties

matter that Shakespeare found it in William Browne. The centuries know nothing of William Browne; they are content to date from Shakespeare. So in tracing back the fancies of poets to him, we are justified in assuming that we have really come to their fountainhead. As a matter of fact, of course, we may have done nothing of the kiud; but if we go farther back into the blackness behind his light, we come to obscure sources which it is improbable

for really they are nothing less could | speare," as if there had never been be multiplied, but without serving any anything before him, and as if the perpurpose. The above are sufficient. spective of the past were closed with And as against them, it is of little avail this one dazzling star, that sucked into to quote an appreciative passage here itself all the light of all the firmament, and another there; for, whatever the and shone alone. Behind it, black exceptions may be, the student cannot darkness; before it, widening down the fail to be struck by the overwhelming aisle of time, the search-light ray of uniformity of the rule; by the surpris- Shakespeare's brilliance. "You will ing similarity of one poet's natural find it in Shakespeare." It does not. history to that of another; by the identical data upon which each works; by the coincidence of the groups and species of animals against which they are prejudiced, as also of those which they agree to neglect specially; by the unanimity of their cruelty towards certain animals in particular; by the resemblance of the language which they use regarding them. He will, in fact, find that the natural history in poetry is curiously limited, and that within those limits it is stereotyped and that many poets have gone to for formulated. Moreover, as he goes along, he will become aware of the truly terrific force that Shakespeare has been in the guidance and development of English thought. As he proceeds, he will recognize at every turn the master's phrases, but not the voice. He will discover, one by one, why certain animals are so inexplicably neglected, others, with as little apparent reason, misrepresented; why the poets are sometimes so tender, at other times so cruel; and why, in spite of constantly recurring passages that are beautifully sympathetic, there should seem to vibrate all through the poets' treatment of animals a jarring string of insincerity and want of observation. The reason for it all is to be found in Shakespeare.

inspiration; but if we stop at Shakespeare, we are certain that we are halting at a spring that every poet has visited, and, arriving there, has felt that he need go no farther. Like the subterranean traveller in search of Shesh, he knows he must have reached the centre of the earth when he comes to "the great diamond. That is all by itself."

Hitherto critics have not studied the animated nature of Shakespeare, or a book, a much needed one, would have been forthcoming; but they have taken it from one another, on the original assurance, possibly, of a misquotation from Johnson, that it was, like his inanimate nature, sublime. Yet nothing can be wider from the facts. The animated nature of Shakespeare is very But why, it will be asked, if he bor- indifferent. It is seldom brightened rowed his own natural history from by any touches of personal observation, others, is he to bear the blame of the and rarely by any suggestion of perfaults of those who followed him ? soual sympathy. As compared with Why? Simply because he is Shake- Shakespeare, Ben Jonson was a natuspeare. His colossal individuality has ralist; as a lover of nature, both he and absorbed into itself all that had been Chaucer rank before him. Yet by the said before him, and it is enough for incompetence of many critics to judge those who have come after him that of his natural history-for instance, "Shakespeare said it." How common Pope and Theobald, and Dryden and it is to hear it said in settlement of a Johnson and by the complaisance of point, "You will find it in Shake-nearly all the rest, down to the editors

Another passage of which much has been made is the description in "Henry V." of a beehive and its inmates:

So work the honey-bees; Creatures that, by a rule in nature, teach The act1 of order to a peopled kingdom. They have a king, and officers of sorts: Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;

of the "Henry Irving" edition of the | tas's description, they cannot, in any
plays, Shakespeare, without any test or honesty, deny that it is much superior
examination, but simply by the courtesy to Shakespeare's summary of it. At all
of reciprocatory indolence, has been events, it is time that "critics" gave
reverentially bowed along from one to over eulogizing it as "Shakespeare's
the other, unchallenged, as a past mas- description" of an ideal horse.
ter in the craft. Being human, they
were able to judge of "the attention he
had given to the actions of men; " and
they acknowledged it sublime. The
"phenomena of inanimate nature" fall
also within the "contemplation" and
66 survey
" of any man with eyes, and
here again they were competent to rec-
ognize Shakespeare as incomparable.
But when it came to the "observation"
of animated nature, they felt that they
were on strange ground. They could
not examine the candidate on the sub-
ject, for they had never "observed"
beasts and birds themselves; but see-
ing that he had already been accorded
two (6
firsts," they at a venture, gave
him a third. And thus, upon mere
assumption, it has come to be accepted
as facts beyond dispute, that Shake-
speare was singularly exact in his natu-
ral history, and that his knowledge was
the result of personal observation.

Those who hold this view support it
sometimes by appealing to special pas-
sages, three of which from their celeb-
rity we may here notice. Foremost
among them is that description of an
ideal horse in "Venus and Adonis."
But, unfortunately, it is borrowed word
for word from Du Bartas. Here are all
Shakespeare's phrases as they occur in
that description, and. in brackets, those
of his original.

Round hoofed (round hoof); short jointed
(short pasterns); broad
breast (broad
breast); full eye (full eye); small head
(head but of middle size); nostrils wide
(nostril wide); high crest (crested neck,
bowed); straight legs (hart-like legs); and
passing strong (strong); thin mane (thin
mane); thick tail (full tail); broad buttock
(fair fat buttocks); tender hide (smooth
hide).

Others, like merchants, venture trade
Others, like soldiers, armèd in their stings,
abroad;
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,
Which pillage they with merry march
bring home

To the tent royal of their emperor,
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold;
The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Deliv'ring o'er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone.

As poetry, it is a most beautiful passage; as a description of a hive, it is utter nonsense, with an error of fact in every other line, and instinct throughout with a total misconception of the great bee-parable. Obviously, therefore, there could have been no personal observation. How then did the poet arrive at the beautiful conception? From the "Euphues" of Lyly. The passage will be found in a speech of Fidus by any one who will read from

a kind of people; a commonwealth for Plato" to "whom they that tarry at home receive readily, easing their backs of so great burthens." Was it original in Lyly? No, for any one who will turn to the fourth book of the Georgics will find there Virgil's description of a beehive; and if Shakespeare had in his own matchless

If Shakespeare did not borrow from 1 As no "critic" (to our knowledge) has ever Du Bartas, it is obvious that he bor-suggested "art" for "act," we assume the acrowed from some other work to which cepted reading calls for no alteration. Yet "art of order" does not read amiss; especially after the Du Bartas had already been. And if word "teach," and in striking antithesis to "nacritics will read the whole of Du Bar-ture." LIVING AGE. 115

VOL. III.

language, directly paraphrased the | been the first to notice how the hedgeLatin poet's beautiful version, his de- sparrow was used by the young cuckoo." scription would have gained greatly Again Shakespeare,

in accuracy and lost but little in originality.

66

being fed by us, you used us so As this ungentle gull, the cuckoo's bird, Useth the sparrow: did oppress our nest, Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk That even our love durst not come near your sight

For fear of swallowing; but with nimble
wing

We were enforced, for safety's sake, to fly
Out of your sight.

Another passage often applauded is Shakespeare's catalogue of dogs in Lear," in conjunction with his classification of dogs in "Macbeth." No book on "The Dog" is complete without these two quotations; yet no one who has read the catalogue of dogs and the subsequent classification of them in the "Return from Parnassus," Upon this, the editors of the "Henry can base Shakespeare's claim to an ex- Irving Shakespeare" quote with aptraordinary originality in observation proval a most preposterous criticism of upon those particular passages in Knight's, not worth reproducing here. "Lear" and " Macbeth." Now these Suffice it to say that the fascination of are three quotations by which, at vari- the young cuckoo over its little fosterous times, by very various editors, parents is so curious and lasting that, quantities of "criticism" have been long after the cuckoo has left the nest supported, magnifying the poet's obser- and is able to forage for itself, its small vation of animated nature. We have guardians still continue to feed it and shown the extent of their "original- industriously drop down its huge gullet Once more ity," and leave our readers to put their their tiny morsels of food. own value upon the criticism based Shakespeare: upon them.

"As the cuckoo is in June heard but not regarded." This, How then shall we judge of Shake"the cuckoo in June," was a very speare's original observation? Our common proverbial saying of the time ; space forbids the only satisfactory yet critics comment lengthily upon it. method; namely, an exhaustive treat- Such then is the total sum of Shakement of his natural history, with par-speare's "natural history" of the allel quotations from his predecessors cuckoo, and it amounts to two prov and contemporaries. But we can at erbs, two misstatements, and the comany rate give a few examples. For instance, taking a bird at random, the cuckoo is one that Shakespeare constantly uses. What is, honestly, the total sum of his natural history of the cuckoo ? "The cuckoo builds not for himself." This is true, but scarcely original. "Hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrows' nests." True again, but only original in calling this universal favorite "hateful." 1 "The hedge sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, that it had its head bit off by its young." Now a cuckoo could not bite off a sparrow's head, and it certainly would not suicidally destroy its only food-provider. Yet a critic says of this very passage, "Shakespeare seems to speak from his own observation, and to have

pletest possible misconception of the
cuckoo "idea" in nature. Yet critics
have lavished their admiration upon it.
Let us in the same way take a beast
What has
at random-the weasel.
Shakespeare to say of it? He calls it
"quarrelous," "night-wandering," and
"egg-sucking," and says,
"The eagle
England being in prey, to her un-
guarded nest the weasel Scot comes
sneaking, and so sucks her princely
eggs.' "Suck-egg weasel" was a
proverb, and so was quarrelsome as a
weasel." Of the rest we need only
remark that the weasel is not a night-
wanderer, and that it does not plunder
eagle's eyries. So that the total gain
amounts to two proverbs and two mis-
statements. Yet a critic tells us that
"the knowledge which Shakespeare
displays of the habits of the weasel could

"" as if drones were some outside insects that plundered honey-bees. Again, Lucrece, confessing her ravishment, says:

only have been acquired by one accus- | fisherman in "Pericles " talks of misers tomed to much observation by flood as "drones that rob the bee of her and field." It is hardly credible that honey responsible writers will go to such lengths in order to mislead. Yet, as we have seen, they will. Nor is it really any wonder that very false impressions of Shakespeare's familiarity with nature should generally prevail, when editors, critics, and professed students of Shakespeare betray such miserable lack of judgment and so indifferent a regard for facts.

My honey lost, and I, a drone-like bee,
Have no perfection of my summer left,
But robbed and ransacked by injurious
theft :

In thy weak hive a wandering wasp hath
crept

And sucked the honey which thy chaste bee kept.

This, if literally translated, reads thus: "I was a female bee, but a wasp robbed me of my honey, and I am now like a male bee." Again we have, "We'll follow where thou lead'st, like stinging bees in hottest summer's day, led by their master to the flower'd fields." The passage is of course ridiculous, but it is taken from Du Bartas (The Furies), Shakespeare using "master" in the sense of "king" in the original. Again Shakespeare, of bees returning to the hive, "Our thighs packed with wax, our mouths with honey," though bees do not carry their wax on their thighs but in their "tails," and their honey, not in their mouths, but in their

Or let us take an insect, and, as we have already alluded to it, let it be the bee. In the passage we have quoted we find that Shakespeare's description of the hive owes its design to the fancies of others, and its details to the poet's own imagination. Not only is it full of errors (those perhaps would not matter), but Shakespeare has so perverted for his purpose the archbishop is holding forth before the king on the necessity of co-operation for the welfare of the kingdom and his Majesty the whole natural scheme of bee-economy as to show himself entirely out of sympathy with nature's design. Shakespeare has a great many references to the bee, in metaphor and simile and moral, but his natural history of the 99 stomachs.' However, the line is insect is as limited as it is inaccurate. borrowed from Lyly's "Euphues." Thus, "The old bees die, the young But enough of bees. We have shown possess their hive; a line which by taking a bird, a beast, and an insect, reads like a platitude or a truism, and the complexion of Shakespeare's natseems hardly worth the saying. Yet it ural history, and, without any thought is so instinct with misconception that of depreciating the matchless language it would be hard to find its equal. Of in which he clothes his errors, have anything else in the world it might be proved, by the most direct manner of true, but said of the bee it is a monu-proof, quotation, that the knowledge mental error, the most compendious upon which a certain class of critics so misstatement possible. There are no pride themselves in exulting, does not "generations" of bees; they are all exist. And so we might easily go, if the offspring of the same mother; and they possess the hive by mutual arrangement and not by hereditary succession, for when it gets too full, the superfluous tenth goes off with a queen bee to "the colonies," leaving, as it were, the old folks at home. But there is no need to dissect the line. What was Shakespeare's idea of the "drone " bee ? Suffolk says, "Drones suck not eagles' blood but rob beehives," and a should now call country life.

we had the space, item by item, through his animated nature, and prove, in the same indisputable way, how judicious Johnson was when he declined to commit himself to an opinion upon Shakespeare's zoology.

But taking men all round, ordinarily intelligent men of a country life,1 was Shakespeare, as compared with one of 1 A town life was in Shakespeare's day what we