happy in all encounters." 17 Lovely, modest, magnanimous, and constant are among the epithets bestowed upon him. But he is suspected by his enemies of being an atheist.18 In the later of the two plays he is charged with speaking treason against Navarre, and finally falls on the scaffold a victim to his "intemperate speech." 19 The leading event of the comedy--the meeting of the King of Navarre with the Princess of France-lends itself as readily to a comparison with an actual occurrence of contemporary French history as do the heroes of the play to a comparison with those who played chief part in it. At the end of the year 1586 a very decided attempt had been made to settle the disputes between Navarre and the reigning King. The mediator was a Princess of France-Catherine de Medici-who had virtually ruled France for nearly thirty years, and who now acted in behalf of her son, decrepit in mind and body, in much the same way as the Princess in Love's Labour's Lost represents her "decrepit, sick, and bed-rid father." The historical meeting was a very brilliant one. The most beautiful ladies of the court accompanied their mistress. "La reine," we are told, "qui connoissoit les dispositions de Henri à la galanterie, avoit compté sur elles pour le séduire, et elle avoit fait choix pour la suivre à Saint Bris (where the conference was held) des plus belles personnes de sa cour." 20 This bevy of ladies was known as "l'escadron volant," and Davila asserts that Henry was desirous of marrying one of them.21 Navarre, however, parted with Catherine and her sirens without bringing their negotiations to a satisfactory decision; but the interview was doubtless one of the causes that brought about the political alliance between Navarre's party and the royal house which took place just before the French King's death in 1589. The memory of the original attempt was naturally then revived. There is thus much probability that the meeting of Navarre and the Princess on the Elizabethan stage was suggested by the well-known interview at Saint Bris. That Shakespeare attempted to depict in the Princess the lineaments of Catherine, we do not for a moment The Princess in the play seems mainly distinguished for her "Chapman's Conspiracie of Duke Biron (8vo. reprint), ibid. p. 189. 18 Ibid. p. 258. 19 Chapman's Tragedie of Biron, p. 313. It is interesting to notice that many writers of the time compared Biron to Essex. Chapman several times introduces the comparison. In one place Biron is made to speak of "The matchless Earl of Essex, whom some make a parallel with me in life and fortune." 20 Sismondi, xx. 237. " Davila's Memoirs of Civil Wars in France, translated (London, 1758), i, 521-24, where an original account of the interview is given. feminine tact, and although a hasty glance at French politics might have induced an observer to number that quality among Catherine's characteristics, it is clearly very insufficient ground on which to base any relationship. This is the last portion of evidence on which we rely for establishing a connection between the plot of Love's Labour's Lost and contemporary French politics; but before concluding our remarks we wish to set in an historical light another scene in the play. The Russian incident has been a matter of difficulty to many generations of commentators. The ruse by which Navarre and his attendants introduce themselves to the Princess and the ladies, disguised as Russians, seems, on the grounds hitherto stated, to be somewhat ridiculous, and calculated to defeat rather than advance the King's object of recommending himself and his followers as suitors for the ladies' hands. Nor does the quotation made by Ritson from Hall's Chronicle, and usually set down as a note on this incident, more satisfactorily account for its introduction. "In the first of Henry the Eighth," writes Hall, "at a banquet made by the foreign ambassadors, came the Lord Henry, Earl of Wiltshire, and Lord Fitzwalter, in two long gowns of yellow satin traversed with white satin, and in every bend of white was a bend of crimson satin after the fashion of Russia or Russland." From the Princess's description of the Frenchman's dress as "shapeless gear," we are inclined to doubt if Shakespeare followed Hall at all, nor do we think that Shakespeare's audience would have very keenly appreciated this needless reminiscence of a comparatively unimportant event more than eighty years old. We believe that the introduction of the Russians was due to more recent occurrences. It should be remembered that England first opened negotiations worthy of the name with Russia in Elizabeth's reign, and that an important trading connection was soon after her accession established, in which she in common with her people took a lively interest. She obtained many valuable privileges from the Czar in favour of the English traders. At first the Russian Emperor was flattered by the intercourse, and in 1570 he sent a Russian representative to carry out a desire he had expressed that "England and Russland might be in all matters as one." Whether the envoy resented the Englishman's habit of persistently staring distinguished foreigners out of countenance, or because the magnificence of his reception fell below his expectations, he complained on arriving home that he had been badly treated in this country, and from his return dates a change in Russia's attitude towards the English traders. They were subjected to every kind of petty annoyance. They could obtain no redress for wrong done them by Russians. Their lives were often jeopardised, and yet the Czar refused them adequate protection. The Queen patiently protested for many years, but with very doubtful success. But in 1589 the disputes reached a crisis. A special envoy charged with important negotiations with the Czar returned to England and declared that he had been subjected to the most inhuman treatment. He had not only been abased but greatly abused. He had been shut up in a very unhandsome and unwholesome house, more like a prisoner than an ambassador. He had with difficulty obtained requisite food to support existence. The Queen's temper was roused, and she wrote a fiery letter in her own hand to the Czar. Speaking of her envoy's treatment and the Emperor's previous conduct to her traders, she said: "The like were never offered of no prince towards us; no, not of our greatest enemies, and they are hardly to be digested of any princely nature." The bearer of this message with these and more practical protests did not leave England till the following year, but the public excitement had scarcely then cooled.23 These occurrences directing public attention to England's connection with Russia doubtless revived the memory of a scene that had taken place a few years before, and which will, we believe, be of service to us in our study of Love's Labour's Lost. About 1582 a second Russian ambassador--Theodore Andreievitch Pissemsky by name-accompanied by a large suite, arrived in London. He was magnificently received and treated with much honour, but his instructions contained a clause that sent a thrill of horror through the breast of every lady at Elizabeth's Court. The Czar had threatened some time previously that no peace could be permanent between the two countries unless it were sealed by an union between the royal houses. The ambassador had therefore received orders not to return to Russia without a kinswoman of the Queen to be his master's wife. Pissemsky would listen to no refusal, and the Queen's protests were quite unavailing. At length she selected a bride. She named Lady Mary Hastings, daughter of the Earl of Huntingdon, who was nearly related to her, and thereby satisfied the Czar's condition. In May 1583 an interview was ordered to take place between her and the Russian envoy and his suite. In order to flatter the Russian's notion of the importance of the occasion, an elaborate ceremonial was arranged. In the gardens of York House, then the residence of the Lord Chan 23 A very admirable account of England's relations with Russia in Elizabeth's reign is to be found in Mr. E. A. Bond's Preface to Giles Fletcher's Of the Russe Commonwealth and Horsey's Travels, reprinted in a single volume by the Hakluyt Society in 1856. cellor, a large pavilion was erected, just under which sat Lady Mary "attended on with divers great ladies and maids of honour." A number of English noblemen were allowed to witness the proceedings. The Russian arrived with his suite, and was at once brought before her ladyship. "She put on a stately countenance accordingly;" but the conduct of the strangers was anything but dignified. Pissemsky at first "cast down his countenance, fell prostrate to her feet, ran back from her, his face still towards her, she and the rest admiring at his manner." In his own person he said nothing, but he had brought an interpreter with him to address the object of his suit. The speaker declared "it did suffice him to behold the angel he hoped should be his master's spouse: commended her angelic countenance, state, and admirable beauty." Shortly afterwards the gathering broke up, and was long afterwards remembered as an excellent joke. The lady finally refused to accept the Czar's offer, and the Emperor replied by threatening to come to England and carry her away by force. Happily his death prevented his carrying his threat into execution, but, as if to prevent the incident from fading from the public mind, Lady Hastings was known afterwards as the Empress of Muscovia.24 Between this ludicrous scene and the visit of Navarre and his lords disguised as Russians in Love's Labour's Lost there are some noticeable points of likeness. Both interviews take place in "a park before a pavilion," and the object of both is to "advance a love-feat." The extravagant adulation which Moth is instructed to deliver, corresponds to the interpreter's address. In either case the ladies have a right to complain what fools were here Disguised like Muscovites in shapeless gear, and may well wonder at Their shallow shows and prologue vilely penned, The general description given of the Russians in the play corresponds so closely with the accounts published in 1591 by Giles Fletcher, one of Elizabeth's envoys, that we are inclined to believe that Shakespeare was acquainted with him (he was John Fletcher's uncle), and either saw the book before its publication or otherwise became acquainted with its contents. Their "rough carriage" seems an echo of Fletcher's words, "for the most part they are unwieldy and inactive withal," 25 and Rosaline's remark, "well-liking wits they have; gross gross; fat fat," seems a reminiscence of the statement 24 Mr. Bond's Preface, pp. xlviii-lii., and Horsey's Travels, p. 196, "they are for the most part of a large size and of very fleshy bodies, accounting it grace to be somewhat gross and burly." 26 On the whole, these events and these descriptions seem better able to account for Shakespeare's introduction of the Russians than anything that has hitherto been suggested. It may be added that "the fantastical Spaniard" who haunts. Navarre's court is also clearly drawn upon the lines of a living personage. Boyet says of him :— This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here in Court; A phantasm, a Monarcho, one that makes sport To the prince and his book-mates. Holofernes describes him as a "fanatical phantasm." A like character shortly before had made sport for Elizabeth's courtiers. He was known by the very name, and by the epithet corresponding to the title here given to Shakespeare's magnificent Armado. "Phantastical Monarcho" was for years familiar to every visitor at the English court. For some time he was under the extraordinary delusion that all ships arriving at the port of London belonged to him. On his death Thomas Churchyard wrote a poem entitled "The Phantasticall Monarchoes Epitaph," which enjoyed considerable popularity in London. 27 Shakespeare's ridiculous knight 26 Fletcher's Description of the Russe Commonwealth, p. 146. 27 Halliwell's note on Love's Labour's Lost (iv. i. 99) in his Folio Shakespeare, vol. iv. Since this article was written, Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps has very kindly sent me his Memoranda on Love's Labour's Lost, &c., which he printed for private circulation a short time ago. Although his investigations have been of a very different character from those I have here undertaken, they seem to corroborate indirectly the view I have taken of the play. Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps admirably shows how readily Shakespeare caught up any popular mania, whether rational or irrational, by the note he gives on Moth's allusion to Banks' dancing-horse (L.L.L. i. 2, 53). No less than between sixty and seventy references are quoted, chiefly from contemporary sources, to illustrate the interest taken during Shakespeare's time in the performances of this animal. Similarly Mr. Phillipps attributes the introduction of the eccentric pun on Ajax, in the Fifth Act (L.L.L. v. 2, 579), to the appreciation popularly bestowed on a similar quibble, made by Sir John Harrington in his Metamorphosis of Ajax. To prove the general popularity of the play itself, Mr. Phillipps quotes a very rare poem by Robert Tofte, which contains an interesting notice of an early performance of the comedy; and this, taken in connection with other early notices of it, serves, he says, to show how popular the play was in its author's day. The volume contains a critical examination of Biron's fine speech ("O'tis more than need," &c. L.L.L. iv. 3, 286-362), which conclusively proves that those who were responsible for the passage of the play through the press tacked together indiscriminately revised and unrevised versions of the original lines, and tends to confirm the belief that the chief passages in Biron's part were almost wholly rewritten after the first production of the comedy. |