Or Macbeth's? Or that of Cassius? Or that of Falconbridge? But we might go on for ever.Take a single example, Shylock.Is he so eager for money as to be indifferent to revenge? Or so eager for revenge as to be indifferent to money? Or so bent on both together as to be indifferent to the honour of his nation and the law of Moses? All his propensities are mingled with each other, so that, in trying to apportion to each its proper part, we find the same difficulty which constantly meets us in real life.Asuperficial critic may say, that hatred is Shylock's ruling passion.But how many passions have amalgamated to form that hatred? It is partly the result of wounded pride: Antonio has called him dog.It is partly the result of covetousness: Antonio has hindered him of half a million; and, when Antonio is gone, there will be no limit to the gains of usury.It is partly the result of national and religious feeling: Antonio has spit on the Jewish gaberdine; and the oath of revenge has been sworn by the Jewish Sabbath.We might go through all the characters which we have mentioned, and through fifty more in the same way; for it is the constant manner of Shakspeare to represent the human mind as lying, not under the absolute dominion of one despotic propensity, but under a mixed government, in which a hundred powers balance each other.Admirable as he was in all parts of his art, we most admire him for this, that while he has left us a greater number of striking portraits than all other dramatists put together, he has scarcely left us a single caricature.
Shakspeare has had neither equal nor second.But among the writers who, in the point which we have noticed, have approached nearest to the manner of the great master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane Austen, a woman of whom England is justly proud.
She has given us a multitude of characters, all, in a certain sense, commonplace, all such as we meet every day.Yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from each other as if they were the most eccentric of human beings.There are, for example, four clergymen, none of whom we should be surprised to find in any parsonage in the kingdom, Mr.Edward Ferrers, Mr.Henry Tilney, Mr.Edmund Bertram, and Mr.Elton.They are all specimens of the upper part of the middle class.They have all been liberally educated.They all lie under the restraints of the same sacred profession.They are all young.They are all in love.Not one of them has any hobbyhorse, to use the phrase of Sterne.Not one has a ruling passion, such as we read of in Pope.Who would not have expected them to be insipid likenesses of each other? No such thing.Harpagun is not more unlike to Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger, than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend brethren.And almost all this is done by touches so delicate, that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we know them to exist only by the general effect to which they have contributed.
A line must be drawn, we conceive, between artists of this class, and those poets and novelists whose skill lies in the exhibiting of what Ben Jonson called humours.The words of Ben are so much to the purpose that we will quote them:
"When some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, In their confluxions all to run one way, This may be truly said to be a humour."There are undoubtedly persons, in whom humours such as Ben describes have attained a complete ascendency.The avarice of Elwes, the insane desire of Sir Egerton Brydges for a barony to which he had no more right than to the crown of Spain, the malevolence which long meditation on imaginary wrongs generated in the gloomy mind of Bellingham, are instances.The feeling which animated Clarkson and other virtuous men against the slave-trade and slavery, is an instance of a more honourable kind.
Seeing that such humours exist, we cannot deny that they are proper subjects for the imitations of art.But we conceive that the imitation of such humours, however skilful and amusing, is not an achievement of the highest order; and, as such humours are rare in real life, they ought, we conceive, to be sparingly introduced into works which profess to be pictures of real life.
Nevertheless, the writer may show so much genius in the exhibition of these humours as to be fairly entitled to a distinguished and permanent rank among classics.The chief seats of all, however, the places on the dais and under the canopy, are reserved for the few who have excelled in the difficult art of portraying characters in which no single feature is extravagantly overcharged.
If we have expounded the law soundly, we can have no difficulty in applying it to the particular case before us.Madame D'Arblay has left us scarcely anything but humours.Almost every one of her men and women has some one propensity developed to a morbid degree.In Cecilia, for example, Mr.Delvile never opens his lips without some allusion to his own birth and station; or Mr.
Briggs, without some allusion to the hoarding of money; or Mr.
Hobson, without betraying the self-indulgence and self-importance of a purse-proud up start; or Mr.Simkins, without uttering some sneaking remark for the purpose of currying favour with his customers; or Mr.Meadows, without expressing apathy and weariness of life; or Mr.Albany, without declaiming about the vices of the rich and the misery of the poor; or Mrs.Belfield, without some indelicate eulogy on her son; or Lady Margaret, without indicating jealousy of her husband.Morrice is all skipping, officious impertinence, Mr.Gosport all sarca**, Lady Honoria all lively prattle, Miss Larolles all silly prattle.If ever Madame D'Arblay aimed at more, we do not think that she succeeded well.
