PERICLES.

THE hypothesis that Pericles was derived from a poem by Gower, and an old court play, and patched up by Shakspere, may account for some incongruities in it. The politics, the obscenity and profanity, seem to have come from the hand of Shakspere. There is as strong political satire in Pericles as in any of Shakspere's plays, which is an answer to Johnson's dictum-that Shakspere could not supply 'faction with invective.' But it will be easy to particularise other sentiments which are common to all his plays.

In the following sentiments of Pericles, there is a touch of Shakspere's universal charity, as practically inefficient towards man, as it is indignant towards the gods.

The blind mole casts

Copp'd hills towards heaven, to tell, the earth is throng'd
By man's oppression; and the poor worm doth die for't.
Kings are earth's gods: in vice, their law 's their will;
And if Jove stray, who dares say, Jove doth ill?

The circumstance here complained of being in the nature of things, seems to imply that the author did think the world in a desperate and unredeemable condition. If he condemned the system, because of the existence of evil, he must have condemned the disposer of events, or he did not think that there was one. It involves the dilemma of Epicurus- He either desires to remove evil but cannot, or he can but will not. Marina is given a delicate sensibility; not only averse to do any wrong to the animal creation, but weeping over the wrongs she commits from inevitable necessity. As with Miranda, in the Tempest, this sentiment is made to reflect on the heavenly powers, who do not exert their puissance to prevent this misery. Pericles is represented as a good character. The misanthrope, Jaques, against whom something may be said, turns the same sentiment much to the same account as the Prince of Tyre. Shakspere is said to em

brace a physiological error in the well-known passage, that a worm suffers as much as a giant. It is to be hoped that he is not correct; but there seems to be the same intention to represent, or misrepresent, if he were better informed, the state of torment and mutual destruction arising from the system of things. That these sentiments have a philosophical rather than a moral intention, we argue from the fact, that they cannot be reduced to practice. We cannot leave reptiles, vermin, or beasts, in possession of the soil, though Pericles says it is oppression to remove them, and his daughter cries at it, and Jaques says they have as much right to it as we have; and Andronicus affirms even flies to have mental feelings similar to our own. It will be observed from these and other instances, that Shakspere would elevate the beast-scale, or reduce us to a level with the animal. The analogy in the lines quoted, and elsewhere, seems to run thus we do to the rest of the creation as the gods do to us -the animals have no redress against us; we have none against the gods. This is all the consolation Shakspere can give us.

As a farmer, Shakspere must have made war against moles and worms; his works even show an appreciation of field sports. We think, therefore, that he meant no more than the philosophy of the sentiment indicated. In the above extract, there is a satire on our vain appeals to heaven, and likening human oppressors to the gods; and also a political satire in the two last lines. The manner, as well as the matter, is irreverent.

On Pericles leaving his kingdom to the care of Helicanus, he gives Shakspere's usual remark on the sanction of religion to oaths, in the intercourse between men :

I'll take thy word for faith, not ask thine oath; Who shuns not to break one, will sure crack both. He does not leave oaths here, but goes into a laboured exemplification of them, and would show how the good and bad act irrespectively of them. The former fulfil their duty, and the latter their crimes, in spite of them. If any guarantee, they are made a guarantee of wickedness.

The prince departs on his travels, and by the arrival of his ship, relieves Tharsus from famine. The governor, in

conversation with his wife, had ascribed this famine to heaven; but represented as a pair of hypocritical villains, they, with their court, fall on their knees before Pericles, and offer religion to him.

All. The gods of Greece protect you!
And we'll pray for you.

Pericles. Rise, I pray you, rise!

We do not look for reverence, but for love,

And harbourage for ourself, our ships, and men,

Pericles leaves his daughter, Marina, to their care; Cleon calls down the vengeance of the gods on himself and his, if he neglects the charge.

Pericles. I believe you;

Your honour and your goodness teach me credit,

Without your vows.

Pericles is no sooner gone, than Dionyza commits Marina to Leonine to be killed. She is particular in recalling to the murderer remembrance of his oath to do it.

Leonine. I'll do't; but yet she is a goodly creature.
Dionyza. The fitter then the gods should have her.

An impious remark which Richard the Third repeats. The murderer is religious. He addresses Marina, whom he is about to murder.

Leonine. Come, say your prayers speedily
Marina. What mean you?

Leon. If you require a little space for

I grant it: pray; but be not tedious,

prayer,

For the gods are quick of ear, and I am sworn

To do my work with haste.

Mar. Why will you kill me?

Leon. To satisfy my lady.

Mar. Why would she have me kill'd?
Now, as I can remember, by my troth,
I never did her hurt in all my life;
I never spake bad word, nor did ill turn
To any living creature: believe me, la,
I never kill'd a mouse, nor hurt a fly:
I trod upon a worm against my will,
But I wept for it.

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Marina does not accept the offer of space for prayer,' but, as Leonine says, wants to reason of the deed.' She is

given no idea of a present God of help, to whom she might turn, or a future state, where her innocence would meet with reward, and those guilty of her death would be punished. The conversation of certain characters in the brothel of Mitylene cannot be repeated, but the wit is often directed against religion. It is acknowledged by the frequenters of the place, that Marina would reason them into virtue. Such wanton jests are passed as make it difficult not to laugh at the pictures of piety which the wicked there draw of the

converted.

Mention is often made of the gods. The evil that comes is of their sending, and they are thanked for good; but they are as often reproached for the part they play in the economy of the universe, and sometimes neglected, by their power being ascribed to other causes. Gower, who acts as chorus, refers events to necessity' and 'fortune.' The following are specimens of the philosophy and materialism, the piety and impiety, put into the mouth of the Tyrian prince. Pericles appears wet by the sea-side of Pentapolis.

Pericles. Yet cease your ire, ye angry stars of heaven!
Wind, rain, and thunder, remember, earthly man
Is but a substance that must yield to you;
And I, as fits my nature, do obey you;

Alas, the sea hath cast me on the rocks,

Wash'd me from shore to shore, and left me breath
Nothing to think on, but ensuing death:

Let it suffice the greatness of your powers,
To have bereft a prince of all his fortunes;

And having thrown him from your wat'ry grave,
Here to have death in peace, is all he'll crave.

Reflecting on the changes of adversity and prosperity in his own person, he says,

Whereby I see that Time's the king of men,

For he's their parent, and he is their grave,

And gives them what he will, not what they crave.

Married to a daughter of King Simonides, he loses her at He addresses the waves from the ship,

sea.

Thou God of this great vast, rebuke these surges,
Which wash both heaven and hell; and thou, that hast
Upon the winds command, bind them in brass,
Having call'd them from the deep!

Immediately after this, he says:—

O you gods!

Why do you make us love your goodly gifts,

And snatch them straight away? We, here below,
Recall not what we give, and therein may

Vie honour with yourselves.

No blasphemy can well exceed this in giving superiority to man over God. In the speech on moles, men, and gods, they were compared together. Here men are made superior to gods in charity. The animus seems to be the same here as there, and could never have been written by a believer.

Pericles. We cannot but obey

The powers above us. Could I rage and roar
As doth the sea she lies in, yet the end

Must be as 'tis.

On finding his daughter alive, he exclaims :

O Helicanus, strike me, honour'd sir;

Give me a gash, put me to present pain;
Lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me,

O'erbear the shores of my mortality,

And drown me with their sweetness. O come hither,
Thou that beget'st him that did thee beget:

Thou that wast born at sea, buried at Tharsus,

And found at sea again! O Helicanus,

Down on thy knees, thank the holy gods as loud
As thunder threatens us. This is Marina.

What was thy mother's name? tell me but that,
For truth can never be confirm'd enough,
Though doubts did ever sleep.

On the restoration of his wife, he adds:

This, this: no more, you gods! your present kindness
Makes my past miseries sport: you shall do well,

That on the touching of her lips I may

Melt, and no more be seen. O come, be buried
A second time within these arms.