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WEST ACADEMIC PUBLISHING’S LAW
SCHOOL ADVISORY BOARD
—————
JESSE H. CHOPER
Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus,
University of California, Berkeley

JOSHUA DRESSLER
Distinguished University Professor, Frank R. Strong Chair in Law
Michael E. Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University

YALE KAMISAR
Professor of Law Emeritus, University of San Diego
Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Michigan

MARY KAY KANE

Professor of Law, Chancellor and Dean Emeritus,
University of California, Hastings College of the Law

LARRY D. KRAMER
President, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

JONATHAN R. MACEY
Professor of Law, Yale Law School

ARTHUR R. MILLER
University Professor, New York University
Formerly Bruce Bromley Professor of Law, Harvard University

GRANT S. NELSON
Professor of Law, Pepperdine University
Professor of Law Emeritus, University of California, Los Angeles

A. BENJAMIN SPENCER
Earle K. Shawe Professor of Law,
University of Virginia School of Law

JAMES J. WHITE
Robert A. Sullivan Professor of Law Emeritus,
University of Michigan
 LAW SCHOOL SUCCESS
IN A NUTSHELL®
A GUIDE TO STUDYING LAW AND
TAKING LAW SCHOOL EXAMS
THIRD EDITION
ANN M. BURKHART
Curtis Bradbury Kellar Professor of Law
Distinguished University Teaching Professor
University of Minnesota Law School

ROBERT A. STEIN
Everett Fraser Professor of Law
Distinguished Global Professor
University of Minnesota Law School
The publisher is not engaged in rendering legal or other professional advice, and this
publication is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. If you require legal or other
expert advice, you should seek the services of a competent attorney or other
professional.
Nutshell Series, In a Nutshell and the Nutshell Logo are trademarks registered in the
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
COPYRIGHT © 1996 WEST PUBLISHING CO.
© 2008 Thomson/West
© 2017 LEG, Inc. d/b/a West Academic
444 Cedar Street, Suite 700
St. Paul, MN 55101
1-877-888-1330
West, West Academic Publishing, and West Academic are trademarks of West
Publishing Corporation, used under license.
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-1-68328-185-6
 To the memory of Ruth Vendley Neumann, whose
love of life and love of writing have been an
inspiration
AMB
To Robert Martin Routh, Sarah Elizabeth Routh,
Amanda Stein Conrad, Christopher Stein Conrad,
Matthew James O’Boyle, and Erin Sandra O’Boyle,
who give me great confidence in the future.
RAS
 PREFACE
—————
This book has two purposes. The first is to answer the many
questions you have about law school as you begin your studies.
Both authors have taught thousands of law students and know
the kinds of questions they have. What is a hornbook? What is a
tort? Should I join a study group? Should I work during the
first year of law school? These and many other mysteries will be
explained. The book’s second purpose is to help you maximize
your law school experience. The book offers concrete and
practical advice on preparing for law school before the academic
year begins and for your first-year classes and exams. Because
exams are so important, the book includes questions that were
given in actual first-year law school classes and model answers
prepared by professors. In many law schools, the professors do
not make their answers available to students, so this book
gives you a valuable insight into exam grading, as well as an
opportunity to practice your exam-taking skills. The book also
acquaints you with the law library and with all the other
aspects of your first year in law school. With this information,
you can get off to a strong start.
Many people have made important contributions to this book.
We are grateful to our colleagues, Professors Barry C. Feld,
Richard S. Frase, Philip P. Frickey, John H. Matheson, C.
Robert Morris, and Eileen A. Scallen, for generously permitting
us to publish their examination questions and answers. We are
also grateful to three outstanding reference librarians at the
University of Minnesota Law Library, George R. Jackson,
Suzanne Thorpe, and Julia Wentz, for reviewing drafts and for
researching innumerable questions. Special thanks are due to
Suzanne for her suggestions for the reading list in Chapter 2.
We have been very ably assisted in the preparation of the book
by three research assistants, Nancy L. Moersch, William J.
Otteson, and Brian J. Schoenborn. Our secretaries, Beverly
Curd, Amy Eggert, and Andrea Sheets, have suffered through
draft after draft with unflagging patience and professionalism.
Finally, the Partners in Excellence Fund at the University of
Minnesota Law School generously provided summer research
grants to Professor Burkhart, which greatly facilitated work on
the book.
In 1971, Professor Stanley V. Kinyon of the University of
Minnesota Law School published a book on law study and law
examinations, which has helped a generation of law students in
their studies. We hope this book will provide the same help to
the next generation of law students.
———————
In our second edition of this book, the chapters have all been
updated to ensure they reflect the current law school
experience. In particular, we have significantly expanded the
sections on online research sources and use of computers in the
study of law to reflect the increasing use of new technology in
law schools today. The examination questions and model
answers have also been reviewed and updated.
We wish to acknowledge and thank our colleagues noted in the
preface to the first edition for their review and revision of their
examination questions and model answers to ensure they
reflect developments in their respective areas of the law. We
are grateful to an additional colleague, Professor Dale
Carpenter, for his valuable suggestions for updating the
question and answer section of the book. We wish to again thank
the librarians at the University of Minnesota Law Library for
their contributions, especially Professors Joan Howland and
Suzanne Thorpe. We have been ably assisted in preparing the
second edition of the book by three talented research assistants
at the University of Minnesota Law School, Paul G. Johnson and
Joseph A. Kosmalski of the Class of 2007 and Karen P. Seifert
of the Class of 2008. Our secretary, Laurie Newbauer, brought
her extraordinary skills to the task of preparing a camera­ready
copy for the publication.
We have been gratified by the comments we received from
students who expressed appreciation for the help they received
from the first edition of the book to achieve their success in the
study of law. We hope the second edition will continue to
provide valuable assistance to future classes of law students.
———————
In the third edition of this book, the chapters have all been
updated to ensure that they reflect the current law school
experience. In particular, Chapter 7 on the law library and legal
research has been substantially revised to discuss the greatly
increased legal resources that are available online and current
use of electronic legal research. The discussion of computers in
Chapter 2 has been updated to describe the increased use of
technology in law schools today. Also, the suggested reading list
in Chapter 2 has been greatly expanded to include the many
excellent new books about law, lawyers, and courts that have
been published in the years since the second edition of this book.
The exam questions and model answers have all been reviewed
and updated to ensure they reflect current law.
We wish to acknowledge and thank our colleagues noted in the
preface to the first edition for their examination questions and
model answers. Thanks also to our colleagues Professors Bradley
G. Clary, Barry C. Feld, Richard S. Frase, Heidi D. Kitrosser, and
John H. Matheson for their valuable revisions to the question and
answer section of the book. We also owe a large debt of gratitude
to the librarians at the University of Minnesota Law Library for
their contributions, especially Professor Connie Lenz. Two
talented research assistants at the University of Minnesota Law
School, Alysha Bohanon and Andrew Heiring, provided very able
assistance in the preparation of this edition. We also thank our
excellent Executive Assistant, Angela Tanner, for her
professional work on this third edition.
 AMB
RAS
May 2017
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and enjoy exciting offers!
 OUTLINE
—————
Preface
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Preparing to Enter Law School
A. Readings
1. Nonfiction
2. Fiction
B. Visit Your Law School
C. Other Preparations
D. Arriving at Law School
E. Computers
Chapter 3 The American Legal System
A. English Roots: The Beginnings of the
Common Law
B. Other Influences on the American Legal
System
C. The Modern American Legal System
1. Judicial Branch
2. Legislative Branch
3. Executive Branch
Chapter 4 What Do Lawyers Do?
A. Generalist Training
B. The Practice of Law
C. Specialization
D. Corporate Law Office
E. Government
F. Law-Related Institutions
G. Business Career
H. Other Career Paths
I. Fluidity of Law Degree
J. Pro Bono Commitment
Chapter 5 The Study of Law
A. Thinking Like a Lawyer
B. Socratic Method
C. Case Method
D. Other Law School Instruction
Chapter 6 First-Year Curriculum
A. First-Year Courses
1. Civil Procedure
2. Constitutional Law
3. Contracts
4. Criminal Law
5. Criminal Procedure
6. Legislation
7. Property
8. Torts
B. Legal Research and Legal Writing
C. First-Year Sections
D. Grading
E. A Reminder
Chapter 7 Finding Your Way Around the
Law Library
A. Your Law Librarian
B. Case Law
C. Case Law Research
1. Online Keyword Searching
2. Case Digests
D. Legislation and Constitutions
1. Federal
2. State
3. Municipal
E. Legislative History
F. Administrative Law
G. Legal Periodicals
H. Treatises
I. Legal Encyclopedias
J. American Law Reports
K. Restatements of the Law
L. Law Dictionaries and Thesauri
M. Citators
Chapter 8 Preparing for Class
A. Case Method
B. Reading Cases
C. Briefing Cases
D. Case Brief Format
1. Caption
2. Facts
3. Procedural History
4. Issues
5. Holdings
6. Rationale
7. Disposition
8. Concurring and Dissenting Opinions
E. Sample Case Brief
Chapter 9 Classroom Experience
A. Socratic Method
B. Class Attendance
C. Class Participation
D. Class Notes
Chapter 10 Learning After Class
A. Daily Review
B. Outlining
C. Sample Outline
D. Study Groups
Chapter 11 Study Aids
A. Hornbooks
B. Subject Summaries
C. Subject Outlines
D. Case Briefs
E. Computer-Based Exercises
F. Exam Reviews
G. Flashcards
Chapter 12 Exams
A. Preparing for the Exam
1. Substance of the Course
2. Form of the Exam
3. Study Schedule
4. Law School Policies
5. Anxiety and Procrastination
B. Taking the Exam
1. The Night Before the Exam
2. During the Exam
a. Reading the Instructions
b. Reading the Questions
c. Taking Notes
d. Other Common Errors
i. Misreading the Question
ii. Ignoring Facts
iii. Assuming Facts
iv. Answering Questions That Have
Not Been Asked
e. Thinking Through and Organizing
Your Answer
i. Identifying Issues
ii. Identifying the Legal Rule
iii. Analyzing the Problem
iv. Reaching a Conclusion
f. Writing the Exam Answer
i. Common Errors
g. Form of the Answer
C. After the Exam
Chapter 13 Other Activities During the
First Year
A. Law Student Organizations
B. Athletic Activities
C. Lectures and Special Events
D. Field Trips
E. Law School Employment
F. Take Time for Yourself
G. Pro Bono Activities
H. Values
Chapter 14 Beyond the First Year
A. Law Journals
B. Clinical Education
C. Moot Court
D. Course Selection
E. International Programs
F. Joint Degree Programs
G. Summer Clerkships
H. New Adventures
Sample Exam Questions and Answers
Civil Procedure I
Civil Procedure II
Constitutional Law I
Constitutional Law II
Contracts I
Contracts II
Criminal Law I
Criminal Law II
Property I
Property II
Torts I
Torts II
Index
 LAW SCHOOL SUCCESS
IN A NUTSHELL®
A GUIDE TO STUDYING LAW AND
TAKING LAW SCHOOL EXAMS
THIRD EDITION
 1

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Hello!
First of all, congratulations on your decision to study law. It will
prepare you for a wonderful profession that will challenge you
intellectually and will provide you an opportunity to benefit
humankind. As a lawyer, you will be able to help people deal with
some of the most important events in their lives, such as the
death of a family member, adoption of a child, purchase of a home
or business, and defending a criminal charge. Furthermore, law
study is excellent training for an enormous variety of fulfilling
career choices in addition to the practice of law.
We have written this book in as practical a manner as possible
to answer all the questions you might have about the study of law
and the writing of law exams. Both authors have taught
thousands of law students, and we have learned from them the
kinds of questions beginning law students frequently have. We
have included in this book all the practical advice we could to
maximize your success, to ease your anxieties, and to remove the
mystery about the study of law.
You are about to embark on a most exciting adventure. You will
be entering law school with a very talented group of high
achievers and will study under the direction of very bright and
knowledgeable professors who will challenge you to do the best
work that you can. The study itself is demanding and will

stretch you so that you will grow intellectually. Because the study
of law is different from other educational experiences, students
sometimes have difficulty understanding how to do it and may
not do as well as they had hoped as a result. In this book, we will
help you understand it more quickly so that you can get off to a
good start.
Our purpose in writing this book is not only to make your law
school experience as successful as possible, but also to make it
enjoyable. Although it will be intellectually demanding, there is
no reason why it should not also be a stimulating and enjoyable
experience. We have observed that law students usually
experience what they expect in their legal education. If you begin
with an expectation of a long, grueling time of anxiety, you
probably will find law school to be an unhappy experience. On the
other hand, if you look forward to law school as one of the most
exciting adventures of your life, you will find that to be true.
Long after lawyers have graduated from law school, they talk
about their law school experiences. The friendships made in law
school will be some of your closest friendships for the rest of your
life. In addition to your classes, law school offers opportunities for
intellectual and personal growth through speakers, student
organizations, and public interest activities. This demonstrates a
very important point. Law school is not just a time of preparation
for the rest of your life; it is also one of the high points of your life.
Make a commitment to do

it as well as you can and to enjoy yourself while you’re at it.

Our book will guide you throughout the first year of law school
as you begin to study law and to take law examinations. In the
next chapter, we will begin by reviewing some preparations you
should make before you begin the study of law. The months after
you have been admitted to law school but before you begin your
studies can be used to great advantage.
Chapter 3 is an overview of the American legal system, which
you will find helpful in orienting you to your law studies. It is a
brief description of the roots and evolution of our legal system
and its modern structure. Because our legal system builds on the
past, it is important to know the history of the law. You will find
it to be helpful to reread this chapter from time to time during
your first year.
If you are like most law students, you are unlikely to know
which area of the law you want to practice. Therefore, in Chapter
4, we identify the various kinds of work done by lawyers. It will
be helpful for you to have in mind the many ways in which
lawyers use their legal training as you decide what you wish to do
with your legal education. This will help illuminate the purpose
and content of your legal education.
In Chapter 5, we discuss the nature of the study of law. It is a
different form of education than you have experienced previously.
This chapter will give you an overview of the legal educational
process and will help you to understand the purpose of your class
discussions and readings.

Chapter 6 will describe the first-year curriculum. Most

American law schools have similar first-year educational
objectives, although the specific courses may vary somewhat. We
have described eight of the most common first-year courses so
that you have some idea of what to expect when you begin these
classes.
Chapter 7 will guide you through the law library. In the study
and practice of law, you will use information intensively.
Therefore, you must know what kind of information is available
and in what format. You also must become adept at finding these
materials in the library and through an electronic research
system.
Much of what you learn during the first year of law school will
be learned in the classroom. In Chapter 8, we discuss the ways in
which you can best prepare for class. In Chapter 9, we discuss the
classroom experience. These chapters will enable you to be as
well prepared as possible and to maximize the benefits of class
discussions.
A great deal of law school learning also occurs outside the
classroom, and we discuss that subject in Chapter 10. The
chapter describes how to organize the materials you have learned
in preparation for the final exam in the course. In that process,
you will find it helpful to use various study aids in addition to the
materials assigned for your classroom discussion, and that is the
next chapter. Chapter 11 describes the different types of study
aids and the best ways to use them.

In Chapter 12, we turn to the important subject of exam taking.

Law school exams are designed to evaluate your ability to analyze
issues presented in the exam question and to describe how they
should be resolved. Just as legal analysis is a learned skill,
successful exam writing also relies on acquired skills. In this
chapter, we will help you develop these skills as quickly and
completely as possible.
During your first year of law school, you will have an
opportunity to participate in many extracurricular activities.
These are the subject of Chapter 13. The chapter also offers
valuable advice for balancing the many demands on your time
during your first year of law school. In Chapter 14, we introduce
you to the challenges and opportunities you will have during your
second and third years of law school.
In the last section of the book, we have included a number of
examination questions and model answers. These questions are
taken from actual law school examinations and show the amount
of exam time that was allocated to answer each question. The
answers were written by law professors. These samples will
acquaint you with the types of questions you will encounter in
your own examinations and the kind of answers your professor
would like to see you write. These questions provide an
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opportunity for you to practice your skills of analysis, writing,
and time management.
We have made every effort to make this book as helpful to you
as possible as you begin your law studies. In our third edition of
this book, we have

updated all the chapters to ensure they reflect the current law
school experience. In particular, we have expanded the sections
on online research sources and use of computers in the study of
law to reflect the increasing use of technology in law schools
today.
If there are subjects we have not discussed in this book that you
feel would have been of value, please let us know by writing to us
at West Academic Publishing. We will be pleased to consider your
suggestions for future editions of this book.
Good luck on your exciting new adventure.
 7

CHAPTER 2
PREPARING TO ENTER LAW SCHOOL
The time period covered by this chapter begins when you have
received notice of your admission to law school and have
responded that you will attend. It may be early in the calendar
year, and classes will not begin until late summer. The weeks and
months before you begin your actual law studies can be used to
prepare for your law school experience.
A. READINGS
Reading about the law and the study of law can be helpful to
you. This book is intended to be a guide for you, and we hope you
will read it in its entirety before you begin your law studies and
then reread relevant portions of it throughout your first year. In
addition, there are a number of other interesting books about the
law and the study of law that you will find helpful.
In addition to books about the law, you might wish to read some
books that will introduce you to legal history and legal
philosophy. You might find biographies of famous lawyers and
judges or accounts of celebrated cases to be interesting. Reading
the news also is important in order to become knowledgeable
about current legal issues and controversies, pending legislation,
and recent judicial decisions.

It would not be especially helpful for you to read legal treatises

or otherwise try to learn the substance of the law during this
time. You do not know what topics your professors will cover, and
legal education is not about memorizing legal doctrine. Instead,
use your time before law school begins to read for pleasure and
for background information. Once school begins, you will have
little time for reading other than for your classes.
Here is a list of some books and articles we recommend,
although you can find numerous other writings by browsing in
the library or a bookstore:
1. NONFICTION
Catherine Drinker Bowen, The Lion and the Throne: The Life and
Times of Sir Edward Coke (Little Brown, 1957)
Connie Bruck, The Predators’ Ball: The Inside Story of Drexel
Burnham and the Rise of the Junk Bond Raiders (Penguin
Books, 1989)
Dale Carpenter, Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v.
Texas (W.W. Norton & Co., 2012)
Michael D. Davis, Thurgood Marshall: Warrior at the Bar, Rebel
on the Bench (Carol Publishing Group, 1992)
Noah Feldman, Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s
Great Supreme Court Justices (Twelve, 2010)
Linda Greenhouse, Becoming Justice Blackmun (Times Books,
2005)

Jonathan Harr, A Civil Action (Random House, 1995)

Linda Hirshman, Sisters in Law (Harper, 2015)
Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Common Law (Little Brown, 1923)
Orin S. Kerr, How to Read a Legal Opinion: A Guide for New Law
Students, 11 Green Bag 2d 51 (2007)
Martin Luther King, Jr., Letters from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Herbert M. Kritzer, The Justice Broker: Lawyers and Ordinary
Litigation (Oxford University Press, 1990)
Anthony Lewis, Gideon’s Trumpet (Random House, 1964)
Karl N. Llewellyn, The Bramble Bush: Our Law and its Study
(Oceana, 1951)
Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of
Nelson Mandela (Little Brown, 1994)
Alpheus Thomas Mason, Brandeis: A Free Man’s Life (Viking,
1946)
Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy (Spiegel & Grau, 2014)
Sonia Sotomayor, My Beloved World (Knopf, 2013)
Irving Stone, Clarence Darrow for the Defense (Doubleday, 1941)
Harlow Giles Unger, John Marshall: The Chief Justice Who
Saved the Nation (Da Capo, 2014)

10

2. FICTION
Louis Auchincloss, Powers of Attorney (Houghton Mifflin, 1963)
Walter Van Tilburg Clark, The Ox-Bow Incident (Random House,
1940)
Charles Dickens, Bleak House (Dent, 1972)
John Grisham, Sycamore Row (Doubleday, 2013)
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (Lippincott, 1960)
Robert Travers, Anatomy of a Murder (St. Martin’s, 1958)
Scott Turow, Presumed Innocent (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1987)

B. VISIT YOUR LAW SCHOOL

If at all possible, visit your law school sometime before you
arrive to begin your law studies. While there, it would be
instructive for you to visit one or more law classes if school is in
session. Usually, the admissions office is able to work out class
attendance arrangements at least on certain days of the week.
Explore the campus and discover what university and law school
resources are available, such as medical clinics, athletic facilities,
and bookstores.
In addition, you should visit the law school admissions office to
get the information you will need for registration for the
upcoming school year. If your law school has assigned you a
faculty advisor, this would be a good time to meet with that
faculty member and introduce yourself. Talk with current

11

students about student organizations and activities and get their

recommendations regarding housing, restaurants, and any other
questions you may have. If you do not know any current students,
the admissions office or dean of students may be able to provide
you with a student host.
You also might find it helpful to browse through the law library
and learn where the various materials and departments are
located. You should check out the various reading rooms, tables,
and carrels to identify a quiet study space where you can study
after you begin law school. You also can acquaint yourself with
the circulation policies, library hours, and computer and copying
facilities. A library overview may be part of your new student
orientation or you should check with the librarians to see if such
an offering is available. The law librarians will be happy to meet
with you to describe the library collections and services.
C. OTHER PREPARATIONS
Other ways in which you can prepare before law classes begin
include visiting a courthouse and observing a trial and talking
with lawyers and judges about their work. You also can ask for
their tips about the study of law. This is a good time to wind up
all your current commitments so that you will not be distracted
by them after you start law school.
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
Place it in view of the object toward which you have succeeded in
directing its desires, and, in its forward spring to reach it, it will no
longer care to measure the space which you compel it to traverse.
When reading an interesting work, our strongly-excited attention
transports us without difficulty from one time to another; our
thought concentrates itself upon the event at which we expect to
arrive, and sees nothing in the interval which separates us from it;
and as it enables us to reach it, without having, as it were,
changed our place, we are scarcely conscious that we have been
obliged to change the time. When Claudius and Laertes have
agreed together upon the duel in which Hamlet is to be slain,
between that moment and the consummation of their plans we
care little to know whether two hours or a week have elapsed.

This arises from the fact that the chain of the impressions has not
been broken, and the position of the characters has not been
changed; their places have continued the same; their ardor is not
less energetic; time has not acted upon them; it counts for nothing
in the feelings with which they inspire us; it finds them, and us
with them, in the same disposition of soul; and thus the two
periods are brought together by that unity of impression which
makes us say, when thinking of an event which occurred long ago,
but the traces of which are still fresh in our memory, "It seems as
though it had happened only yesterday."

In fact, what care we about the time which elapses between the
actions with which Macbeth fills up his career of crime? When he
commands the murder of Banquo the assassination of Duncan is
still present to our eyes, and seems as though it had been
committed only yesterday; and when Macbeth determines upon the
massacre of Macduff's family, we fancy we see him still pale from
the apparition of Banquo's ghost. None of his actions has
terminated without necessitating the action which follows it; they
announce and involve each other, thus forcing the imagination to
go forward, full of trouble and sad expectation. Macbeth, who, after
having killed Duncan, is urged, by the very terror which he feels at
his crime, to kill the chamberlains, to whom he intends to attribute
the murder, does not permit us to doubt the facility with which he
will commit new crimes whenever occasion requires. The witches,
who, at the opening of the play, have taken possession of his
destiny, do not allow us to hope that they will grant any respite to
the ambition and the necessities of his crimes. Thus all the threads
are laid open to our eyes from the beginning; we follow, we
anticipate the course of events; we stint no haste to arrive at that
which our imagination devours beforehand; intervals vanish with
the succession of the ideas which should occupy them; one
succession alone is distinctly marked in our mind, and that is, the
succession of the events which compose the absorbing spectacle
which sweeps us onward in its rapidity. In our view, they are as
closely connected in time as they are intimately linked together in
thought; and any duration that may separate them is a duration as
empty and unperceived as that of sleep—as all those epochs in
which the soul is manifested by no sensible symptom of its
existence. What, in our mind, is the connection of the hours in
comparison with this train of ideas? and what poet, subjecting
himself to unity of time, would deem it sufficient to establish,
between the different parts of his work, that powerful bond of
union which can result only from unity of impression? So true is it
that this alone is the object, whereas the others are only the
means.

These means may, undoubtedly, sometimes have their efficiency;

the rapidity of a great action executed, or a great event
accomplished, within the space of a few hours, fills the imagination,
and animates the soul with a movement to which it yields with
ardor. But few actions really permit so sudden an action; few
events are composed of parts so exactly connected in time and
space; and, without alluding to the improbabilities which are
consequent upon their forced cohesion, the surprises which result
from it very often disturb the unity of impression, which is the
rigorous condition of dramatic illusion. Zaire, passing suddenly from
her devoted love for Orosmane to entire submission to the faith
and will of Lusignan, has some difficulty in restoring to us, in her
new position, as much illusion as she has made us lose by so
abrupt a change. Voltaire sought his effects in the contrast of
perfectly happy love with love in despair; a powerful means, it is
true, but less powerful, perhaps, than the preoccupation of a
constant and unchanging position, which develops itself only to
redouble the feeling which it has at first inspired. When we have
thoroughly established ourselves in an affection, it is far from
prudent to attempt to move us in favor of an opposite affection.
Corneille has not shown us Rodrigue and Chimène together before
the quarrel between their fathers; he felt so little desire to impress
us with the idea of their happiness, that Chimène, when told of it,
can not believe it, and disturbs by her presentiments the too
delightful position of which the poet is exceedingly careful not to
put us in possession, lest we should afterward find it too difficult to
sacrifice it to that duty which will soon command us to leave it. In
the same manner we have become associated with the feelings of
Polyeucte, and have trembled for him before becoming aware of
the love of Pauline for Sévère; if our first interest had been
attached to this love, perhaps it would have been difficult for us
afterward to feel much for Polyeucte, whose presence would be
importunate. Thus, when Zaire has awakened our emotion as a
lover, we are inclined to think that she abandons the position in
which she has placed us rather too easily, in order to fulfill her duty
as a daughter and a Christian. The philosophical indifference which
Voltaire has imparted to her in the first scene, in order to facilitate
her subsequent conversion, renders still more improbable the
devotedness with which she so quickly enters upon a duty so
recently discovered. If, on the other hand, at the outset, Voltaire
had described her to us as troubled with scruples, and disquieted
with regard to her happiness, fear would have prepared us
beforehand to comprehend in all its extent, at its first appearance,
the misfortune which threatens her, and to see her yield to it with
that abandonment which is improbable because it is too sudden.
The employment of sudden changes of fortune, by which it is
attempted to disguise, beneath a great alteration in circumstances,
the too sudden transitions which the rule of unity in point of time
may impose, frequently renders the inconveniences of this rule
more striking, by depriving it of the means of making preparation
for the different impressions which it accumulates within too limited
a space. It is, on the contrary, by a single impression that
Shakspeare, at least in his finest compositions, takes possession at
the very outset, of our thought, and, by means of our thought, of
space also. Beyond the magic circle which he has traced, he leaves
nothing sufficiently powerful to interfere with the effect of the only
unity of which he has need. Change of fortune may exist in
reference to the persons of the drama, but never to the spectator.
Before we are informed of Othello's happiness, we know that Iago
is preparing to destroy it; the Ghost which is to devote the life of
Hamlet to the punishment of a crime, appears on the stage before
he does; and before we have seen Macbeth virtuous, the utterance
of his name by the Witches tells us that he is destined to become
guilty. In the same manner, in "Athalie," the whole idea of the
drama is displayed, in the first scene, in the character and promises
of the high-priest; the impression is begun, and it will continue and
increase always in the same direction. Thus, who could say that an
interval of eight days, interposed, if necessary, between the
promises of Joad and their performance, would have broken the
unity of impression which results from the invariable constancy of
his plans?

To constancy of character, feelings, and resolutions exclusively

belongs that moral unity which, braving time and distance, includes
all the parts of an event in a compact action, in which the gaps of
material unity are no longer perceptible. A violently excited passion
could not aim at such an effect; it has its momentary storms, the
course of which, being subject to external and variable causes,
must in a short time reach its term. As soon as jealousy has seized
upon the heart of Othello, if any interval separated that moment
from the time which witnesses the death of Desdemona, the unity
would be broken; nothing would attest to us the link which must
unite the first transports of the Moor to his final resolution; the
action must therefore hasten rapidly forward, and must hurry him
onward to his destruction, which a day's reflection would perhaps
prevent him from consummating. In the same manner, the simple
description of events, unless the presence of a great individual
character should, by dominating over them, impress upon them its
own unity, will make us feel the want of the material unities; and
the efforts which Shakspeare has made, in his historical dramas, to
approximate to them, or to disguise their absence, are a new
homage paid to that moral unity which is sufficient for every thing
when the poet possesses it, and which nothing can replace when
he has it not. In "Hamlet" and "Macbeth," Shakspeare, inattentive
to the course of time, allows it to pass unnoticed. In his historical
plays, on the other hand, he conceals and dissembles its lapse by
all the artifices that can deceive us in reference to its duration; the
scenes follow and announce each other in such a way, that an
interval of several years seems to be included within a few weeks,
or even a few days. All the probabilities are sacrificed to this
theatrical unity, which time would break too easily between events
which are not linked together by a uniform principle. The scene in
which Richard II. learns from Aumerle the departure of Bolingbroke
into exile, is that in which he announces that he is himself about to
go to Ireland; and it is not yet thoroughly known at court whether
he has actually embarked on this voyage, when the news is
received of the disembarkation of Bolingbroke, returning with an
army, under the pretext of asserting his rights to the succession of
his father, who has died in the interval, but, in reality, to take
possession of the crown; in which attempt he has almost
succeeded before Richard, cast by a tempest upon the coasts of
England, can have been informed of his arrival. And we are told at
the end of the play, which, dating from the banishment of
Bolingbroke, can not have lasted more than fifteen days, that
Mowbray, who was exiled at the same time, has made several
journeys to the Holy Land during the interval, and is at last dead in
Italy.
These monstrous extravagances would assuredly not be numbered
among the proofs of Shakspeare's genius, if they did not attest the
empire assumed over him by the great dramatic thought to which
he sacrificed all beside. Whether in his historical plays, he multiplies
improbabilities and impossibilities in order to conceal the flight of
time, or whether, in his finest tragedies, he allows it to pass
without the slightest notice, he invariably pursues and attempts to
maintain unity of impression, the great source of dramatic effect.
We may see in "Macbeth," the true type of his system, with what
art he overcomes the difficulties which arise from it, and links
together in the soul of the spectator the chain of places and times
which is constantly being broken in reality. Macbeth, when resolved
on the destruction of Macduff, whom he fears, learns that he has
taken flight into England; and he leaves the stage, announcing his
intention to surprise his castle, and to put to death his wife, his
children, and all who bear his name. The next scene opens in
Macduff's castle, by a conversation between Lady Macduff and her
relative, Rosse, who has come to inform her of her husband's
departure, and to express his fears for her own safety. The two
scenes, thus closely connected in thought, seem to be so in time
also; distance has disappeared; and who would think of pointing
out, as an interval of which some recount should be given, the
leagues which separate Macduff's castle from Macbeth's palace, and
the time that would be required to traverse them. We have entered
without effort into this new part of the position; it follows its
course; the assassins appear; the massacre commences. We pass
into England; we behold the arrival of Macduff in that country; the
terrible events of which he is ignorant fill up, for us, the interval
which must separate his departure from his arrival. Rosse appears
some time after him, and informs him of his misfortune. Both
describe to Malcolm the desolation of Scotland, and the general
hatred which Macbeth has incurred. The army which is destined to
overthrow the tyrant is collected together, and the order for
departure is given. But, while the army is on its road, the poet
recalls our imagination toward Macbeth; with him we prepare for
the approach of the troops, whose march is effected without any
thing occurring to inform us of its duration, or to lead us to make
inquiries about it. Scarcely ever, in Shakspeare, do the personages
of the drama arrive immediately in the place for which they have
set out; so abrupt a conjunction would be contrary to the natural
order of the succession of ideas. We have seen Richard II. set out
for the castle of John of Gaunt; it is therefore in John of Gaunt's
castle that we await the arrival of Richard, whose journey has
taken place without our mind being able to complain of not having
been consulted with regard to the time which it occupied. In the
same manner, between two events evidently separated by an
interval long enough for us not to like to see it disappear without
taking some part in it, Shakspeare interposes a scene which may
belong with equal propriety to either the first or the second epoch,
and he makes us pass from one to the other without shocking us
by its intimate connection with the scene which immediately
precedes or follows it. Thus, in "King Lear," between the time when
Lear divides his kingdom among his daughters, and the moment
when Goneril, already tired of her father's presence, determines to
get rid of him, the scenes at Gloster's castle, and the
commencement of Edmund's intrigue, are interposed. Guided by
that instinct which is the science of genius, the poet knows that our
imagination will traverse without effort both time and space with
him, if he spares those moral improbabilities which could alone
arrest its progress. With this view, he sometimes accumulates
material unlikelihoods, and sometimes exhausts the ingenuity of his
art; but, ever attentive to the object at which he aims, he can
reduce to unity of action those artifices and preparatory means
which he employs to remove every thing that could interfere with
the dramatic illusion, and to dispose freely of our thought.

Unity of action, being indispensable to unity of impression, could

not escape Shakspeare's notice. But how, it may be asked, could he
maintain it in the midst of so many events of so changeful and
complicated a nature—in that immense field which includes so
many places, so many years, all conditions of society, and the
development of so many positions? Shakspeare succeeded in
maintaining it, nevertheless: in "Macbeth," "Hamlet," "Richard III.,"
and "Romeo and Juliet," the action, though vast, does not cease to
be one, rapid and complete. This is because the poet has seized
upon its fundamental condition, which consists in placing the centre
of interest where he finds the centre of action. The character which
gives movement to the drama is also the one upon which the moral
agitation of the spectator is bestowed. Duplicity of action, or at
least of interest, has been urged against Racine's tragedy of
"Andromaque," and the charge is not without foundation; it is not
that all the parts of the action do not work together toward the
same end, but the interest is divided, and the centre of action is
uncertain. If Shakspeare had had to treat of such a subject, which,
it must be said, is not in great conformity to the nature of his
genius, he would have made Andromache the centre of the action
as well as of the interest. Maternal love would have pervaded the
entire drama, displaying its courage as well as its fears, its strength
as well as its sorrows. Shakspeare, indeed, would not have
hesitated to introduce the child upon the stage, as Racine
subsequently did in "Athalie," when he had grown more bold. All
the emotions of the spectator would have been directed toward a
single point: we should have beheld Andromache, with greater
activity, trying other means to save Astyanax than "the tears of her
mother," and constantly riveting upon her son and herself an
attention which Racine has too often diverted to the means of
action which he was constrained to derive from the vicissitudes of
the destiny of Hermione. According to the system imposed upon
our dramatic poets in the seventeenth century, Hermione should be
the centre of the action; and so, in fact, she is. Upon a stage which
daily became more subject to the authority of the ladies and of the
court, love seemed destined to take the place of the fatality of the
ancients: a blind power, as inflexible as fatality, and, like it, leading
its victims toward an object defined from the very outset, love
became the fixed point around which all things should revolve. In
"Andromaque," love makes Hermione a simple personage, swayed
by her passion, referring to it every thing that occurs beneath her
view, and careful to bring events into subjection to herself, in order
to make them serve and satisfy her affection. Hermione alone
directs and gives movement to the drama; Andromaque only
appears to suffer the agony of a position as powerless as it is
painful. Such an idea may admit of admirable developments of the
passive affections of the heart; but it does not constitute a tragic
action; and in those developments which do not lead immediately
to action, our interest runs the risk of wandering astray, and
returns afterward with difficulty into the only direction in which it
can be maintained.

When, on the contrary, the centre of action and the centre of

interest are identical—when the attention of the spectator has been
fixed upon the hero of the drama, at once active and unchanging,
whose character, though it remains ever the same, will lead to
incessant changes in his destiny—then the events in agitation
around such a man strike us only by their relation to him, and the
impression which we receive from them assumes the color which
he has himself imparted to them. Richard III. proceeds from plot to
plot; every new success redoubles the terror with which we are
inspired at the outset by his infernal genius; the pity which each
one of his victims successively awakes, becomes merged in the
feelings of hate which accumulate upon their persecutor; none of
these particular feelings diverts our impressions to its own
advantage; they are directed incessantly, and always with
increasing vigor, toward the author of so many crimes; and thus
Richard, the centre of action, is at the same time the centre of
interest also; for dramatic interest is not only the unquiet pity
which we feel for misfortune, or the passionate affection with which
we are inspired by virtue; it is also hatred, the thirst for vengeance,
the invocation of Heaven's justice upon the malefactor, as well as
the prayer for the salvation of the innocent. All strong feelings,
capable of exciting the human soul, can draw us in their train, and
inspire us with passionate interest, they have no need to promise
us happiness, or to gain our attachment by tenderness: we can
also raise ourselves to that sublime contempt for life which makes
men heroes and martyrs, and to that noble indignation beneath
which tyrants succumb.

Every element may enter into an action, thus reduced to one sole
centre, from which emanate, and to which are related, all the
events of the drama, and all the impressions of the spectator. Every
thing that moves the heart of man, every thing that agitates his
life, may combine to produce dramatic interest, provided that,
being directed toward the same point, and marked with the same
impress, the most various facts present themselves only as
satellites of the principal fact, the brilliancy and power of which
they serve to augment. Nothing will appear trivial, insignificant, or
puerile, if it imparts greater vitality to the predominant position, or
greater depth to the general feeling. Grief is sometimes redoubled
by the aspect of gayety; in the midst of danger, a joke may
increase our courage. Nothing is foreign to the impression but that
which destroys it; it nourishes itself, and gains greater power from
every thing that can mingle with it. The prattle of young Arthur
with Hubert becomes heart-rending from the idea of the horrible
barbarity which Hubert is about to practice upon him. We are filled
with emotion by the sight of Lady Macduff lovingly amused by the
witty sallies of her little son, while at her door are the assassins
who have come to massacre that son, and her other children, and
afterward herself. Who, but for these circumstances, would take a
deep interest in this scene of maternal childishness? But, if this
scene were omitted, should we hate Macbeth as much as we ought
to do for this new crime? In "Hamlet," not only is the scene of the
grave-diggers connected with the general idea of the piece by the
kind of meditations which it inspires, but—and we know it—it is
Ophelia's grave which they are digging in Hamlet's presence; and to
Ophelia will relate, when he is informed of this circumstance, all the
impressions which have been kindled in his soul by the sight of
those hideous and despised bones, and the indifference which is
felt for the mortal remains of those who were once beautiful and
powerful, honored or beloved. No detail of these mournful
preparations is lost to the feeling which they occasion; the coarse
insensibility of the men devoted to the habits of such a trade, their
songs and jokes, all have their effect; and the forms and means of
comedy thus enter, without effort, into tragedy, the impressions of
which are never more keen than when we see them about to fall
upon a man who is already their unwitting subject, and who is
amusing himself in presence of the misfortune of which he is
unaware.

Without this use of the comic, and without this intervention of the
inferior classes, how many dramatic effects, which contribute
powerfully to the general effect, would become impossible!
Accommodate to the taste of the pleasantry of our age the scene
with Macbeth's porter, and there is no one who will not shudder at
the thought of the discovery that will follow this exhibition of jovial
buffoonery, and of the spectacle of carnage still concealed beneath
these remnants of the intoxication of a festival. If Hamlet were the
first brought into connection with his father's ghost, what
preparation and explanations would be indispensable to place us in
the state of mind in which a prince, a man belonging to the highest
class of society, must be in order to believe in a ghost! But the
phantom appears first to soldiers, men of simple a kind, who are
more ready to be alarmed than astonished at it; and they relate the
story to one another in the night-watch:

"Last night of all,

When yond' same star, that's westward from the pole,
Had made his course t' illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself,
The bell then beating one—

Marcellus.

Peace! break thee off: look, where it comes again!"

The effect of terror is produced, and we believe in the spectre

before Hamlet has ever heard it mentioned.
Nor is this all; the intervention of the inferior classes furnishes
Shakspeare with another means of effect, which would be
impracticable in any other system. The poet who can take his
actors from all ranks of society, and place them in all positions, may
also bring every thing into action—that is to say, may remain
constantly dramatic. In "Julius Caesar," the scene opens with a
living picture of popular movements and feelings; what explanation
or conversation could make us so well acquainted with the nature
of the seductive influence exercised by the Dictator over the
Romans, of the kind of danger to which liberty is exposed, and of
the error, as well as the peril, of the republicans who hope to
restore liberty by the death of Caesar? When Macbeth determines
to get rid of Banquo, he has not to inform us of his project in the
person of a confidant, or to receive an account of the execution of
the deed in order to make us aware of it: he sends for the
assassins and converses with them; we witness the artifices by
which a tyrant renders the passions and misfortunes of man
subservient to his designs; and we afterward see the murderers lie
in wait for their victim, strike the fatal blow, and return, with blood-
stained hands, to demand their reward. Banquo can then appear to
us; the real presence of crime has produced all its effect, and we
reject none of the terrors which accompany it.

When we desire to produce man upon the stage in all the energy
of his nature, it is not too much to summon to our aid man as a
whole, and to exhibit him under all the forms and in all the
positions of which his existence admits. Such a representation is
not merely more complete and striking, but it is also more truthful
and accurate. We deceive the mind with regard to an event, if we
present to it merely one salient part adorned with the colors of
truth, while the other part is rejected and effaced in a conversation
or a narrative. Thence results a false impression which, in more
than one instance, has injured the effect of the finest works.
"Athalie," that masterpiece of our drama, still finds us imbued with
a certain prejudice against Joad and in favor of Athalie, whom we
do not hate sufficiently to rejoice in her destruction, and whom we
do not fear enough to approve the artifice which draws her into the
snare. And yet Athalie has not only massacred her son's children, in
order that she might reign in their stead; but she is a foreigner,
maintained on the throne by foreign troops; the enemy of the God
adored by her people, she insults and braves Him by the presence
and pomp of a foreign worship, while the national religion, stripped
of its power and honors, and clung to with fear and trembling by
only "a small number of zealous worshipers," daily expects to fall a
victim to the hatred of Mathan, the insolent despotism of the
queen, and the avidity of her base courtiers. Here is, indeed, an
exhibition of tyranny and misfortune; here is matter enough to
drive the people to revolt, and to lead to conspiracies among the
last defenders of their liberties. And all these facts are related in
the speeches of Joad, of Abner, of Mathan, and even of Athalie
herself. But they are displayed in speeches only; all that we behold
in action is Joad conspiring with the means which his enemy still
leaves at his disposal, and the imposing grandeur of the character
of Athalie. The conspiracy is under our eyes; but we have only
heard of tyranny. If the action had revealed to us the evils which
oppression involves; if we had beheld Joad excited and stimulated
to revolt by the cries of the unhappy victims of the vexations of the
foreigner; if the patriotic and religious indignation of the people
against a power "lavish of the blood of the defenseless," had given
legitimacy to Joad's conduct in our eyes—the action, when thus
completed, would leave no uncertainty in our minds; and "Athalie"
would perhaps present to us the ideal of dramatic poetry, at least,
according to our conception of it at the present time.

Though easily attained among the Greeks, whose life and feelings
might be summed up in a few large and simple features, this ideal
did not present itself to modern nations under forms sufficiently
general and pure to receive the application of the rules laid down in
accordance with the ancient models. France, in order to adopt
them, was compelled to limit its field, in some sort, to one corner
of human existence. Our poets have employed all the powers of
genius to turn this narrow space to advantage; the abysses of the
heart have been sounded to their utmost depth, but not in all their
dimensions. Dramatic illusion has been sought at its true source,
but it has not been required to furnish all the effects that might
have been obtained from it. Shakspeare offers to us a more fruitful
and a vaster system. It would be a strange mistake to suppose that
he has discovered and brought to light all its wealth. When we
embrace human destiny in all its aspects, and human nature in all
the conditions of man upon earth, we enter into possession of an
exhaustless treasure. It is the peculiar advantage of such a system,
that it escapes, by its extent, from the dominion of any particular
genius. We may discover its principles in Shakspeare's works; but
he was not fully acquainted with them, nor did he always respect
them. He should serve as an example, not as a model. Some men,
even of superior talent, have attempted to write plays according to
Shakspeare's taste, without perceiving that they were deficient in
one important qualification for the task; and that was, to write as
he did, to write them for our age, just as Shakspeare's plays were
written for the age in which he lived. This is an enterprise, the
difficulties of which have hitherto, perhaps, been maturely
considered by no one. We have seen how much art and effort was
employed by Shakspeare to surmount those which are inherent in
his system. They are still greater in our times, and would unvail
themselves much more completely to the spirit of criticism which
now accompanies the boldest essays of genius. It is not only with
spectators of more fastidious taste, and of more idle and inattentive
imagination, that the poet would have to do, who should venture to
follow in Shakspeare's footsteps. He would be called upon to give
movement to personages embarrassed in much, more complicated
interests, pre-occupied with much more various feelings, and
subject to less simple habits of mind, and to less decided
tendencies. Neither science, nor reflection, nor the scruples of
conscience, nor the uncertainties of thought, frequently encumber
Shakspeare's heroes; doubt is of little use among them, and the
violence of their passions speedily transfers their belief to the side
of their desires, or sets their actions above their belief. Hamlet
alone presents the confused spectacle of a mind formed by the
enlightenment of society, in conflict with a position contrary to its
laws; and he needs a supernatural apparition to determine him to
act, and a fortuitous event to accomplish his project. If incessantly
placed in an analogous position, the personages of a tragedy
conceived at the present day, according to the romantic system,
would offer us the same picture of indecision. Ideas now crowd and
intersect each other in the mind of man, duties multiply in his
conscience, and obstacles and bonds around his life. Instead of
those electric brains, prompt to communicate the spark which they
have received—instead of those ardent and simple-minded men,
whose projects, like Macbeth's, "will to hand"—the world now
presents to the poet minds like Hamlet's, deep in the observation of
those inward conflicts which our classical system has derived from
a state of society more advanced than that of the time in which
Shakspeare lived. So many feelings, interests, and ideas, the
necessary consequences of modern civilization, might become, even
in their simplest form of expression, a troublesome burden, which it
would be difficult to carry through the rapid evolutions and bold
advances of the romantic system.

We must, however, satisfy every demand; success itself requires it.

The reason must be contented at the same time that the
imagination is occupied. The progress of taste, of enlightenment, of
society, and of mankind, must serve, not to diminish or disturb our
enjoyment, but to render them worthy of ourselves, and capable of
supplying the new wants which we have contracted. Advance
without rule and art in the romantic system, and you will produce
melodrames calculated to excite a passing emotion in the
multitude, but in the multitude alone, and for a few days; just as,
by dragging along without originality in the classical system, you
will satisfy only that cold literary class who are acquainted with
nothing in nature which is more important than the interests of
versification, or more imposing than the three unities. This is not
the work of the poet who is called to power and destined for glory;
he acts upon a grander scale, and can address the superior
intellects, as well as the general and simple faculties of all men. It
is doubtless necessary that the crowd should throng to behold
those dramatic works of which you desire to make a national
spectacle; but do not hope to become national if you do not unite
in your festivities all those classes of persons and minds whose
well-arranged hierarchy raises a nation to its loftiest dignity. Genius
is bound to follow human nature in all its developments; its
strength consists in finding within itself the means for constantly
satisfying the whole of the public. The same task is now imposed
upon government and upon poetry; both should exist for all, and
suffice at once for the wants of the masses and for the
requirements of the most exalted minds. Doubtless stopped in its
course by these conditions, the full severity of which will only be
revealed to the talent that can comply with them, dramatic art,
even in England, where, under the protection of Shakspeare, it
would have liberty to attempt any thing, scarcely ventures at the
present day to endeavor timidly to follow him. Meanwhile, England,
France, and the whole of Europe demand of the drama pleasures
and emotions that can no longer be supplied by the inanimate
representation of a world that has ceased to exist. The classical
system had its origin in the life of its time; that time has passed;
its image subsists in brilliant colors in its works, but can no more
be reproduced. Near the monuments of past ages, the monuments
of another age are now beginning to arise. What will be their form?
I can not tell; but the ground upon which their foundations may
rest is already perceptible. This ground is not the ground of
Corneille and Racine, nor is it that of Shakspeare; it is our own; but
Shakspeare's system, as it appears to me, may furnish the plans
according to which genius ought now to work. This system alone
includes all those social conditions and all those general or diverse
feelings, the simultaneous conjunction and activity of which
constitute for us, at the present day, the spectacle of human
things. Witnesses, during thirty years, of the greatest revolutions of
society, we shall no longer willingly confine the movement of our
mind within the narrow space of some family event, or the
agitations of a purely individual passion. The nature and destiny of
man have appeared to us under their most striking and their
simplest aspect, in all their extent and in all their variableness. We
require pictures in which this spectacle is reproduced, in which man
is displayed in his completeness, and excites our entire sympathy.
The moral dispositions which impose this necessity upon poetry will
not change; but we shall see them, on the contrary, manifesting
themselves more plainly, and receiving greater development, day by
day. Interests, duties, and a movement common to all classes of
citizens, will strengthen among them that chain of habitual relations
with which all public feelings connect themselves. Never could
dramatic art have taken its subjects from an order of ideas at once
more popular and more elevated; never was the connection
between the most vulgar interests of man and the principles upon
which his highest destinies are dependent, more clearly present to
all minds; and the importance of an event may now appear in its
pettiest details as well as in its mightiest results. In this state of
society, a new dramatic system ought to be established. It should
be liberal and free, but not without principles and laws. It should
establish itself like liberty, not upon disorder and forgetfulness of
every check, but upon rules more severe and more difficult of
observance, perhaps, than those which are still enforced to
maintain what is called order against what is designated license.
 Historical And Critical Notices

of the

Principal Dramas Of Shakspeare.

Romeo And Juliet.

(1595.)

Two powerful families of Verona, the Montecchi and the Capelletti

(the Montagues and Capulets), had long lived on terms of such
hostility to each other, that it had frequently led to sanguinary
conflicts in the open streets. Alberto della Scala, the second
perpetual captain of Verona, had ineffectually endeavored to
reconcile them; but he succeeded so far in bridling their enmity,
that "when they met," says Grirolamo della Corte, the historian of
Verona, "the younger men made way for their elders, and they
mutually exchanged salutations."

In the year 1303, under the reign of Bartolommeo della Scala, who
had been chosen perpetual captain on the death of his father
Alberto, Antonio Capelletto, the leader of his faction, gave a great
entertainment during the carnival, to which he invited most of the
nobility of Verona. Romeo Montecchio, who was about twenty-one
years of age, and one of the handsomest and most amiable young
men in the city, went thither in a mask, accompanied by some of
his friends. After some time, taking off his mask, he sat down in a
corner, from which he could see and be seen. Much astonishment
was felt at the boldness with which he had thus ventured in the
midst of his enemies. However, as he was young and of agreeable
manners, the Capulets, says the historian, "did not pay so much
attention to his presence as they might have done if he had been
older." His eyes and those of Giulietta Capelletto soon met, and
being equally struck with admiration, they did not cease to look at
each other. The festivities terminated with a dance, which "among
us," says Girolamo, "is called the hat-dance (dal cappello)," in
which Romeo engaged; but, after having danced a few figures with
his partner, he left her to join Juliet, who was dancing with another.
"Immediately that she felt him touch her hand, she said, 'Blessed
be your coming!' And he, pressing her hand, replied, 'What blessing
do you receive from it, lady?' And she answered, with a smile, 'Be
not surprised, sir, that I bless your coming; Signor Mercurio had
been chilling me for a long while, but by your politeness you have
restored me to warmth.' (The hands of this young man, who was
called Mercurio the Squinter, and who was beloved by every one for
the charms of his mind, were always colder than ice.) To these
words, Romeo replied, 'I am greatly delighted to do you service in
any thing.' When the dance was over, Juliet could say no more than
this: 'Alas! I am more yours than my own.'"

Romeo having repaired on several occasions to a small street upon

which Juliet's windows looked out, one evening she recognized him
"by his sneezing or some other sign," and opened the window; they
saluted each other very courteously (cortesissimamente), and,
after having conversed for a long while of their loves, they agreed
that they must be married, whatever might happen; and that the
ceremony should be performed by Friar Leonardo, a Franciscan
monk, who was "a theologian, a great philosopher, an admirable
distiller, a proficient in the art of magic," and the confessor of
nearly all the town. Romeo went to see this worthy; and the monk,
thinking of the credit he would gain, not only with the perpetual
captain, but also with the whole city, if he succeeded in reconciling
the two families, acceded to the request of the young couple. On
Quadragesima Sunday, when confession was obligatory, Juliet went
with her mother to the church of St. Francis in the citadel; and
having entered first into the confessional, on the other side of
which Romeo was stationed, they received the nuptial benediction
through the window of the confessional, which the monk had had
the kindness to leave open. Afterward, by the connivance of a very
adroit old nurse of Juliet's, they spent the night together in her
garden.

However, after the festival of Easter, a numerous troop of Capulets

met, at a little distance from the gates of Verona, a band of
Montagues, and attacked them, at the instigation of Tebaldo, a
cousin-german of Juliet, who, seeing Romeo use every effort to put
an end to the combat, went up to him, and, forcing him to defend
himself, received a sword-thrust in his throat, from which he fell
dead on the spot. Romeo was banished; and a short time
afterward, Juliet, on the point of finding herself compelled to marry
another, had recourse to Friar Leonardo, who gave her a powder to
swallow, by means of which she would appear to be dead, and
would be interred in the family vault, which happened to be in the
church attached to Leonardo's convent. The monk was to deliver
her immediately from her grave, and to send her in disguise to
Mantua, where Romeo was residing; and he promised to inform her
lover of their design.

Matters were arranged as Leonardo had suggested; but Romeo,

having been informed of Juliet's death by an indirect source, before
he received the monk's letter, set out at once for Verona with a
single domestic, and, having provided himself with a violent poison,
hastened to the tomb, opened it, bathed Juliet's body with his
tears, swallowed the poison, and died. Juliet awaking from her
trance the instant afterward, seeing Romeo dead, and learning from
the monk, who had come up in the meanwhile, all that had
happened, was seized with such violent paroxysms of grief, that,
"without being able to utter a word, she fell dead upon the bosom
of her Romeo." [Footnote 19]

[Footnote 19: See Girolamo della Corte, "Istorie di

Verona," vol. i., p. 89, et seq ed. 1594.]

This story is told as true by Girolamo della Corte, and he assures

his readers that he had often seen the tomb of Romeo and Juliet,
which, rising a little above the level of the ground, and being
situated near a well, then served as a laundry to the orphan asylum
of St. Francis, which was being built in that locality. He relates, at
the same time, that the Cavalier Gerardo Boldiero, his uncle, who
had first taken him to this tomb, had pointed out to him, at a
corner of the wall, near the Capuchin Convent, the place from
which he had heard it said that the bones of Romeo and Juliet, and
of several other persons, had been transferred a great number of
years before. Captain Bréval, in his Travels, also mentions that he
saw at Verona, in 1762, an old building which was then an orphan
asylum, and which his guide informed him had once contained the
tomb of Romeo and Juliet, but that it no longer existed.

It was probably not in accordance with the narrative of Girolamo

della Corte that Shakspeare composed his tragedy. It was first
performed, as it would appear, in 1595, under the patronage of
Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain of Queen Elizabeth, and was
printed for the first time in 1597. Now the work of Girolamo della
Corte, which was intended to contain twenty-two books, was
interrupted in the middle of the twentieth book, and in the year
1560, by the illness of the author. We learn, moreover, from the
editor's preface, that this illness was prolonged, and terminated in
the death of the historian; that the necessity for revising a work, to
which Girolamo himself had been unable to give the finishing
stroke, occupied a considerable period; and, finally, that the
lawsuits, "both civil and criminal," with which the editor was
tormented, prevented him from bringing his undertaking to a
conclusion as promptly as he could have desired; so that the work
of Girolamo could not have been published until a long while after
his death. The edition of 1594 is, therefore, to all appearance, the
first edition, and could scarcely have fallen into Shakspeare's hands
so early as 1595.

But the history of Romeo and Juliet, which was doubtless very
popular at Verona, had already formed the subject of a novel by
Luigi da Porto, published at Venice in 1535, six years after the
death of the author, under the title of "La Giulietta." This novel was
reprinted, translated and imitated in several languages, and
furnished Arthur Brooke with the subject of an English poem, which
was published in 1562, and from which Shakspeare certainly
derived the subject of his tragedy. [Footnote 20]

[Footnote 20: The title is, "The Tragicall Historye of

Romeus and Juliet, containing a rare Example of true
Constancie; with the Subtill Counsels and Practises of an
old Fryer, and their ill event." This poem has been
reprinted at the end of the tragedy in the large editions
of Shakspeare; among others, in Malone's edition.]
The imitation is complete. Juliet, in Brooke's poem, as well as in
the novel of Luigi da Porto, kills herself with Romeo's dagger,
instead of dying of grief, as in the history of Girolamo della Corte;
but it is a singular circumstance, that both Arthur Brooke's poem
and Shakspeare's tragedy make Romeo die, as in the history,
before Juliet awakes, whereas, in the novel of Luigi da Porto, he
does not die until after he has witnessed her restoration to life, and
had a scene of sorrowful farewell with her. Shakspeare has been
blamed for not having adopted this version, which would have
furnished him with a very pathetic position; and it has been
inferred that he was not acquainted with the Italian novel, although
it had been translated into English. Several circumstances, however,
give us reason to believe that Shakspeare was acquainted with this
translation. As for his motives for preferring the poet's narrative to
that of the novelist, he may have had many; in the first place, to
account for his departing in so important a point from the novel of
Luigi da Porto, which he has followed most scrupulously in almost
every other particular, perhaps Arthur Brooke, the author of the
poem, may have had some knowledge of the true history, as
related by Girolamo della Corte. Being a contemporary of
Shakspeare, he may have communicated this to him, and
Shakspeare's careful conformity, as far as he was able, to history,
or to the narratives received as such, would not have allowed him
to hesitate as to his choice. Moreover—and this was probably the
true reason of the poet—Shakspeare very seldom precedes a strong
resolution by long speeches. As Macbeth says:

"Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives."

Whatever anguish reflection may add to grief, it fixes the mind on

too large a number of objects not to distract it from the single and
absorbing idea which leads to desperate actions. After having
received Romeo's farewell, and lamented his death in concert with
him, it might have happened that Juliet would have bewailed him
all her life instead of killing herself on the spot. Garrick rewrote the
scene in the monument, in accordance with the supposition
adopted in the novel of Luigi da Porto; the scene is touching, but,
as was perhaps inevitable in such a situation, which it would be
impossible to delineate in words, the feelings are too much and too
little agitated, and the despair is either excessive or not sufficiently
violent. In the laconism of Shakspeare's "Romeo and Juliet," in
these last moments, there is much more passion and truth.

This laconism is all the more remarkable, because during the whole
course of the play, Shakspeare has abandoned himself without
constraint to that abundance of reflection and discourse which is
one of the characteristics of his genius. Nowhere is the contrast
more striking between the depth of the feelings which the poet
describes, and the form in which he expresses them. Shakspeare
excels in seeing our human feelings as they really exist in nature,
without premeditation, without any labor of man upon himself,
ingenuous and impetuous, mingled of good and evil, of vulgar
instincts and sublime inspirations, just as the human soul is, in its
primitive and spontaneous state. What can be more truthful than
the love of Romeo and Juliet, so young, so ardent, so unreflecting,
full at once of physical passion and of moral tenderness, without
restraint, and yet without coarseness, because delicacy of heart
ever combines with the transports of the senses! There is nothing
subtle or factitious in it, and nothing cleverly arranged by the poet;
it is neither the pure love of piously exalted imaginations, nor the
licentious love of palled and perverted lives; it is love itself—love
complete, involuntary and sovereign, as it bursts forth in early
youth, in the heart of man, at once simple and diverse, as God
made it. "Romeo and Juliet" is truly the tragedy of love, as
"Othello" is that of jealousy, and "Macbeth" that of ambition. Each
of the great dramas of Shakspeare is dedicated to one of the great
feelings of humanity; and the feeling which pervades the drama is,
in very reality, that which occupies and possesses the human soul
when under its influence. Shakspeare omits, adds, and alters
nothing; he brings it on the stage simply and boldly, in its energetic
and complete truth.
Pass now from the substance to the form, and from the feeling
itself to the language in which it is clothed by the poet; and
observe the contrast! In proportion as the feeling is true and
profoundly known and understood, its expression is often factitious,
laden with developments and ornaments in which the mind of the
poet takes delight, but which do not flow naturally from the lips of
a dramatic personage. Of all Shakspeare's great dramas, "Romeo
and Juliet" is, perhaps, the one in which this fault is most
abundant. We might almost say that Shakspeare had attempted to
imitate that copiousness of words, and that verbose facility which,
in literature as well as life, generally characterize the peoples of the
South. He had certainly read, at least in translation, some of the
Italian poets; and the innumerable subtleties interwoven, as it
were, into the language of all the personages in "Romeo and
Juliet," and the introduction of continual comparisons with the sun,
the flowers, and the stars, though often brilliant and graceful, are
evidently an imitation of the style of the sonnets, and a debt paid
to local coloring. It is, perhaps, because the Italian sonnets almost
always adopt a plaintive tone, that choice and exaggeration of
language are particularly perceptible in the complaints of the two
lovers. The expression of their brief happiness is, especially in the
mouth of Juliet, of ravishing simplicity; and when they reach the
final term of their destiny, when the poet enters upon the last
scene of this mournful tragedy, he renounces all his attempts at
imitation, and all his wittily wise reflections. His characters, who,
says Johnson, "have a conceit left them in their misery," lose this
peculiarity when misery has struck its heavy blows; the imagination
ceases to play; passion itself no longer appears, unless united to
solid, serious, and almost stern feelings; and that mistress, who
was so eager for the joys of love, Juliet, when threatened in her
conjugal fidelity, thinks of nothing but the fulfillment of her duties,
and how she may remain without blemish the wife of her dear
Romeo. What an admirable trait of moral sense and good sense is
this in a genius devoted to the delineation of passion!
However, Shakspeare was mistaken when he thought that, by
prodigality of reflections, imagery, and words, he was imitating Italy
and her poets. At least he was not imitating the masters of Italian
poetry, his equals, and the only ones who deserved his notice.
Between them and him, the difference is immense and singular. It
is in comprehension of the natural feelings that Shakspeare excels,
and he depicts them with as much simplicity and truth of substance
as he clothes them with affectation and sometimes whimsicality of
language. It is, on the contrary, into these feelings themselves that
the great Italian poets of the fourteenth century, and especially
Petrarch, frequently introduce as much refinement and subtlety as
elevation and grace; they alter and transform, according to their
religious and moral beliefs, or even to their literary tastes, those
instincts and passions of the human heart to which Shakspeare
leaves their native physiognomy and liberty. What can be less
similar than the love of Petrarch for Laura, and that of Juliet for
Romeo? In compensation, the expression, in Petrarch, is almost
always as natural as the feeling is refined; and whereas Shakspeare
presents perfectly simple and true emotions beneath a strange and
affected form, Petrarch lends to mystical, or at least singular and
very restrained emotions, all the charm of a simple and pure form.

I will quote only one example of this difference between the two
poets, but it is a very striking example, for it is one in which both
have tried their powers upon the same position, the same feeling,
and almost the same image.

Laura is dead. Petrarch is desirous of depicting, on her entrance

upon the sleep of death, her whom he had painted so frequently,
and with such charming passion, in the brilliancy of life and youth:

"Non come fiamma che per forza è spenta,

Ma che per sè medesraa si consume,
Se n'andò in pace l'animo contenta.
A guisa d'un soave e chiaro lume,
Cui nutrimento a poco a poco manca,
 Tenendo al fin il suo usato costume;
Pallida no, ma più che neve bianca
Che senza vento in un bel colle fiocchi,
Parea posar come persona stanca.
Quasi un dolce dormir ne' suoi begli occhi,
Sendo lo sperto già de lei diviso,
Era quel che morir chiaman gli sciocchi,
Morte bella parea nel suo bel viso." [Footnote 21]

[Footnote 21: Petrarch, "Trionfo della Morte," cap. i.,

lines 160-172]

The following translation is from the pen of Captain Macgregor:

"Not as a flame which suddenly is spent,

But one that gently finds its natural close,
To heaven, in peace, her willing spirit rose;
As, nutriment denied, a lovely light,
By fine gradations failing, less, less bright,
E'en to the last gives forth a lambent glow:
Not pale, but fairer than the virgin snow,
Falling, when winds are laid, on earth's green breast,
She seem'd a saint from life's vain toils at rest.
As if a sweet sleep o'er those bright eyes came,
Her spirit mounted to the throne of grace!
If this we, in our folly, Death do name,
Then Death seem'd lovely on that lovely face." [Footnote 22]

[Footnote 22: Macgregor's "Odes of Petrarch," p. 220.]

Juliet also is dead. Romeo contemplates her as she lies in her

tomb, and he also expatiates upon her beauty:

* * * "O, my love! my wife!

Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty;
Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet
 Is crimson in thy lips and on thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there."

I need not insist upon the comparison; who does not feel how
much more simple and beautiful the form of expression is in
Petrarch? It is the brilliant and flowing poetry of the South, beside
the strong, rough, and vigorous imagination of the North.

The love of Romeo for Rosaline is an invention of Luigi da Porto,

retained in the poem of Arthur Brooke. This invention imparts so
little interest to the first acts of the drama, that Shakspeare
probably adopted it merely with a view to giving greater effect to
that character of suddenness which distinguishes the passions of a
Southern clime. The part of Mercutio was suggested to him by
these lines of the English poem:

"A courtier that eche where was highly had in price,

For he was courteous of his speeche, and pleasant of devise.
Even as a lyon would emong the lambs be bolde,
Such was emong the bashful maydes Mercutio to beholde."

Such was, doubtless, the bel air in Shakspeare's time, and it is as

the type of the amiable and amusing companion that he has
described Mercutio. However, though he was not bold enough to
attack, like Molière, the ridiculous absurdities of the court, he very
frequently makes it evident that its tone was a burden to him; and
the part of Mercutio seems to have been a great tax upon his taste
and uprightness of mind. Dryden relates as a tradition of his time,
that Shakspeare used to say, "that he was obliged to kill Mercutio
in the third act, lest he should have been killed by him." Mercutio
has, nevertheless, had many zealous partisans in England; among
others, Johnson, who, on this occasion, soundly rates Dryden for
his irreverent words regarding the witty Mercutio, "some of whose
sallies," he says, "are perhaps out of the reach of Dryden."
Shakspeare's aversion for the kind of wit of which he has been so
lavish in "Romeo and Juliet," is sufficiently proved by Friar
Laurence's injunction to Romeo when he begins to explain his
position in the sonnet style:

"Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift;

Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift."

Friar Laurence is the wise man of the play, and his speeches are, in
general, as simple as it was allowable for those of a philosopher to
be in his time.

The part of Juliet's nurse also contains but few of these subtleties,
which Shakspeare seems to have reserved, in this work, to persons
of the higher classes, and sometimes to the valets who ape their
manners. The character of the nurse is indicated in Arthur Brooke's
poem; in which, however, it is far from possessing the same homely
truthfulness as in Shakspeare's drama.

Wherever they are not disfigured by conceits, the lines in "Romeo

and Juliet" are perhaps the most graceful and brilliant that ever
flowed from Shakspeare's pen. They are, for the most part, written
in rhyme, another homage paid to Italian habits.

Hamlet.

(1596.)

"Hamlet" is not the finest of Shakspeare's dramas; "Macbeth," and,

I think, "Othello" also, are, on the whole, superior to it: but it
perhaps contains the most remarkable examples of its author's
most sublime beauties, as well as of his most glaring defects. Never
has he unvailed with more originality, depth, and dramatic effect
the inmost state of a mighty soul; never, also, has he yielded with
greater unrestraint to the terrible or burlesque fancies of his
imagination, and to the abundant intemperance that is
characteristic of a mind which hastens to diffuse its ideas without
any selection, and which delights to render them striking by a
strong, ingenious, and unexpected expression, without caring to
give them a pure and natural form.

According to his custom, Shakspeare took no trouble in "Hamlet,"

either to invent or to arrange his subject. He took the facts as he
found them recorded in the fabulous stories of the ancient history
of Denmark, by Saxo Grammaticus, which wore transformed into
tragical histories by Belleforest, about the middle of the sixteenth
century, and were immediately translated and became popular in
England, not only among the reading public, but also on the stage,
for it appears certain that six or seven years before Shakspeare, in
1589, an English poet named Thomas Kyd had already written a
tragedy on the subject of Hamlet. This is the text of the historical
romance out of which, as a sculptor chisels a statue from a block of
marble, Shakspeare modeled his drama.

"Fengon, having secretly assembled certain men, and perceiving

himself strong enough to execute his enterprise, Horvendile, his
brother, being at a banquet with his friends, suddenly set upon
him, where he slew him as traitorously as cunningly he purged
himself of so detestable a murder to his subjects; for that before
he had any violent or bloody hands, or once committed parricide
upon his brother, he had incestuously abused his wife, whose honor
he ought to have sought and procured, as traitorously he pursued
and effected his destruction. * * *

"Boldened and encouraged by his impunity, Fengon ventured to

couple himself in marriage with her whom he used as his concubine