Essays on English studies

Front matter

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Preface

In 1 85 1 there was published in Boston an edition of Shakespeare's plays in eleven volumes, edited by Henry N. Hudson. This edition — the second by an American, Verplanck's being the first — at once attracted the attention of students of literature in Europe and America because of the independence, originality, and suggestiveness revealed in the analysis of the characters, and the insight, sympathy, and sanity of the aesthetic criticism. As a result the editor soon became recognized as one whose opinions challenged attention as did those of Gervinus of Heidelberg and Dowden of Dublin. Professor Hudson's object, everywhere manifest, even in his earlier work, was to quicken in the minds and hearts of readers a love for Shakespeare, as a man and artist, by bringing them into vital relations with his manifold revelations of human life.

Few of those who have found pleasure in teaching the English classics are aware of what a debt they owe to Professor Hudson, who did pioneer work in making the study of English literature popular in private classes, secondary schools, and colleges. He was able to do this by virtue of his unbounded enthusiasm in his work, his belief that literature properly taught would awaken a living interest in all that belongs to humanity, and his wealth of experience in life. His ambition to do this for English literature was not free from disturbing fears that the methods which were so much in vogue in teaching the Greek and Latin viii PREFACE

classics would be thought available here, and as a protest against such methods he wrote the following essays, which were published in the editions of his School Shakespeare.

In the revision of Hudson's edition of Shakespeare's plays now being published, it was desirable to retain those features of the work which gave it distinction and placed the editor among the great interpreters of dramatic literature, and to gather the essays on the teaching of Shakespeare and the English classics in a separate volume for the use of teachers as an introduction to Professor Hudson's life, his methods of teaching, and his principles of literary criticism. These essays contain earnest matter for the teacher of English, and if they are read as they were intended to be read they will reveal what is so much needed at the present time, — a deep feeling for literature, its natural magic and moral profundity, rather than a critical knowledge of it.

The Introduction gives such biographical facts as had a special influence on the development of Hudson's character and the forming of his tastes ; and the Notes show how his work is related to that of other great teachers, and reflect the esteem in which it was held by his coworkers in the sphere of Shakespearean interpretation and criticism. It is believed these will be found helpful to those teachers who would teach literature in a vital way.

It was my good fortune to come upon these essays at a time, during my first year of teaching, when I was casting about for editions of the English classics which were edited with an idea of revealing the forces in the life of the times which gave them their tone and color, and the personality behind them which gave them their charm and vogue, rather than those affording opportunity for learned disquisitions on the structure of language and the science of

PREFACE ix

verse — the kind of criticism adapted to make our pleasure less. I found in them a living power, a warm human sympathy, a clear moral purpose, and a noble conception of what constitutes literary workmanship — the unmistakable signs of one who possessed the eye to see, the heart to feel, and the imagination to make real the things in literary art which are more excellent. After reading them I sought the man who created them, and the resulting intimate association which I had with him during the remaining years of his life was rich in revelation of

a Soul whose master bias leans To home-felt pleasures and to gentle scenes.

He was a genial spirit, full of delicate and subtle purposes, of sweet and chivalrous activities, of healthful and charming enthusiasms, of a high faith in the beauty and truth of noble literary creations, and yet

endued as with a sense And faculty for storm and turbulence,

which manifested itself in a fierce denunciation of pedantry and a withering scorn of drudgery — those foes to the study of mere literature — which, when once admitted to the class room, will expel interest, admiration, and fellowship.

For these reasons it has been a pleasure to prepare this volume, and to introduce my friend and teacher to others who can never feel the charm of his presence as I have felt it.

Owing to the nature of these essays and the conditions under which they were written, it was but natural that there should be some repetition of thought and form, but it has seemed best to republish them as they originally appeared.

x PREFACE

The address on Daniel Webster is included in this volume as being worthy of study beside those later tributes of Honorable S. W. McCall and Honorable George F. Hoar, given at the Webster Centennial at Dartmouth College.

My thanks are due to Dr. Horace Howard Furness for permission to quote from his correspondence with Dr. Hudson, and to Professor Edward Dowden, of Trinity College, Dublin, for his interesting present-day estimate of Dr. Hudson's work, which appears in the Notes.

The presence of a cross ( + ) in the text indicates that there

is a note on the passage.

r & A. J. GEORGE

Brookline, Massachusetts August, 1906

Contents

Page

Introduction xiii

Preface to School Hamlet. (1879) 3

How to Use Shakespeare in School. (1872) . . 63 Preface to the Harvard Edition of Shakespeare.

(1880) 87

Daniel Webster. A Discourse Delivered on the Hun- > \ ir dredth Anniversary of the Death of Daniel Webster,

Books Quoted in Notes 205

Introduction

Henry Norman Hudson was born in Cornwall, Vermont, January 28, 181 4. His early years were spent on the farm, where he was brought up to know the necessity and the value of application. The only advantages which he had for an education were such as were common in a New England town with its system of district schools. But these advantages should not be underrated, for though the soil was not rich in arts and letters, yet by the discipline of simplicity in habit, truth in speech, and knowledge rightly honored by being associated with power to do something worthy, the youth was being unconsciously nurtured into possibilities of future usefulness. Much of his power to appreciate and interpret Wordsworth was gained in these rural associations, breathing the keen and wholesome air of poverty.

When eighteen years of age young Hudson left the farm and became apprenticed to a coach maker. During the three years spent in learning his trade he was working extra hours to earn additional wages with which to buy books. How mature his mind had become under the simple and natural training of the time — and especially of the district school where he came upon bits of the great poets and prose writers in the old reading book — is seen from the fact that the first books which he bought were Shakespeare, Milton, Plutarch's Lives, and Butler's Analogy. It was fortunate for him, as he often remarked to me, that at this time he lived in the xiv INTRODUCTION

family of his master in the trade, a man full of sympathy, of shrewd observation, and sound sense. The master soon saw that his apprentice was spending his time in reading to some purpose, for he talked intelligently and gracefully upon the subjects in life and letters which interested him ; he therefore suggested to him the possibility of preparing for college. The suggestion somewhat surprised the lad, but it pleased him no less, and he at once set about the task of getting ready for the examinations. This he had to do for himself, working late and early at his tasks, for he could get no aid save occasional advice from the local clergyman; and yet in 1836 he entered Middlebury College, where his older brother was then a student, determined that he would work his way to the end.

It was during this period that the main elements of his character as revealed later in life received their proper bent. He had little time for the usual college festivities, as he was older than the average student and had learned the value of time. He was somewhat shy and reserved ; he lived much by himself, with nature and with books. The libraries attracted him more than the playground. He was studious in much the same way that Emerson was, — a way that did not show immediate returns, and so failed of reward based upon the usual college tests ; consequently he was left unnoticed and in obscurity by the college faculty and most of the students. His tastes were literary and forensic. He was skilled in the art of reading and talking, and whenever he found students of kindred mind he was free and friendly in conversation, and courageous in presenting his convictions. When speaking of or writing on his favorite authors he was animated and zealous, full of poetic fervor and originality. His essays, especially those on Shakespeare,

INTRODUCTION xv

were no mere reproductions of facts or the thoughts of others, but were characterized by clear insight, keen analysis, sound judgment, and fervid feeling, enlivened by a quiet and quaint humor. They were free from the spirit of judicial criticism, for he insisted that loving sympathy was the secret of insight. It was this sympathy, this power of making the author's ideas and feelings his own, that won for him the fit audience in that rural college. Reverend H. L. Sheldon, a college mate of his, writes : "At one time when Hudson seemed even more than usually earnest and happy in his comments, I remarked to him : ' Hudson, you will some day write a book on Shakespeare ; I will give you a title, — The Beauties of the World's Greatest Poet.' He replied, ' Oh, no ; I read and study this author only because of the genuine pleasure it affords me and the kind of rest it gives me from the fatigue and routine of my college application.' " Here was the substance of his great work as an aesthetic critic, and the fundamental principle in all his teaching of the English classics. From this early recognition of the purpose and the power of great literature he became a bitter enemy of pedantry on the one hand, and of drudgery on the other, which have been so often associated with literary studies, and have done so much to prevent their proper recognition in academic education.

On graduating from college in 1840 he went to Kentucky, where he began teaching. The next two years he taught in Huntsville, Alabama. He continued his Shakespeare studies meanwhile, and gathered material for a series of lectures which he gave to large and enthusiastic audiences in the principal southern cities. These lectures revealed such a wealth of ideas, originality of interpretation, ripeness of thought, vigor and mastery of language that xvi INTRODUCTION

their fame traveled northward, and in 1844 he came to Boston and began that work which made him a marked literary figure there for nearly half a century. Through his lectures on Shakespeare he became a center of peculiar interest in Boston. He was received with enthusiasm by men as wide apart as Richard H. Dana and Theodore Parker. Mr. Emerson, who was then lecturing upon literary and philosophical subjects up and down the land, was charmed with the personality of the new critic. Mr. George Ticknor was enthusiastic in his admiration for the spirit of the young and chivalrous expounder of the great poet. Hudson soon became as popular as Emerson himself in lecture courses in all the great cities. Mr. Horace Howard Furness writes me, " I vividly remember the enthusiasm which attended his early course of lectures in Philadelphia and the unexampled crowds which attended them." In 1848 he published his lectures with a preface and dedication to Mr. Richard H. Dana. These studies of types of human nature as illustrated in Shakespeare's various characters had a glow and warmth, a freshness of imaginative conception, and a clearness of critical insight superior to that attained by any American writer, and placed their author in the front rank of interpreters. So popular were they that a second edition was called for in less than a year. Dr. Bartol, in reviewing them for the North American Review, said : " Never was a heartier, more absorbing admiration shown than Mr. Hudson's for his subject. After long-continued meditation and much rewriting these lectures are now presented to us like * beaten oil,' pure and rich."

It was but natural that such studies of Shakespeare should lead to a desire to prepare an edition of his works for the purpose of initiating the general reader into

INTRODUCTION xvii

a Aiidy of the dramatist with a new and more humani/tic spirit. In 1851 he brought out an edition of Shakespeare's plays in eleven volumes. This is sometimes called the first American edition because of the enthusiasm it created among readers. Although Mr. G. C. Verplanck had brought out an edition in 1847, it soon became rare because of the destruction of the plates by fire, and Mr. Hudson's edition had the control of the market until Mr. Richard Grant White became his rival. This work owed its reputation and success mainly to the character of the critical introductions to the plays in which were found the same unique and admirable interpretations of the characters which had been the feature of his lectures. It was at once evident that Hudson was a pupil of Coleridge, whose criticism was a criticism of love. Coleridge combined the impulse of admiration with the ability to explain why he admired; he criticised poetry as poetry, not as science.

In 1852 Hudson married Miss Emily S. Bright, a gifted and cultured lady, whose love was in her home and the things which make home lovely. She became his wisest and most sympathetic critic. In 1859 he was admitted to the diaconate of the Episcopal Church. He was for several years editor of the Churchman and originated the Church Monthly. In 1862, while in his parochial charge in Litchfield, Connecticut, he became chaplain of the New York Volunteer Engineers and war correspondent of the New York Evening Post. Being stationed in the department commanded by General B. F. Butler, he wrote a private letter to Mr. Godwin in regard to the general's defeat near Bermuda Hundred. This was used as a part of an editorial in the Evening Post. Soon after this Chaplain Hudson got leave of absence to visit his son who was lying at the point xviii INTRODUCTION

of death. After the death of the son Mrs. Hudson w.s so broken down with grief that the chaplain sent his resignati>n to his colonel. It was accepted and forwarded to Gener;l Butler, who saw his chance to get even with Hudson, and he ordered him to appear at headquarters on the charge of being absent without leave. He was then put into the prison, or " bull pen," as it was called, where he suffered all kinds of indignities and hardships during a period of several months, until his friends at Washington became informed of the condition of things, when he w r as released by wish of President Lincoln, and immediately General Grant gave him leave of absence. Later Mr. Hudson took occasion to review the case, and in a pamphlet of sixty pages arraigned the motive and method of General Butler in the most scathing and brilliant repartee since Burke's " Letter to a Noble Lord." At the time General Butler was seeking the governorship of Massachusetts Mr. Hudson reprinted the pamphlet as a political document. On this occasion Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote to him : " Your pamphlet is timely; it seems to me that the impending election is to mark the choice of Massachusetts between civilization and semibarbarism. I am very glad you have retold your story at a time when it will serve as a strong count in his indictment."

In 1865 Mr. Hudson moved to Cambridge, where he spent the remainder of his life. He occasionally officiated in churches, but his time was given almost entirely to teaching Shakespeare and other English authors and to lecturing. When Grant White's last edition of Shakespeare came out Mr. Hudson confessed that it had beaten his, but at the time he said, "Wait awhile, and I will beat White as much as he has now beaten me." His teaching in the school and college led him to urge that Shakespeare be made of more use

INTRODUCTION xix

in English courses, and he began to prepare the plays for such use. The feature of these plays was those remarkable introductions dealing with the characters in their relation to human life and to Shakespeare's mind and art.

In 1872 he published his magnum opus, Shakespeare's Life, Art, and Characters, in two volumes, which is the greatest work in the sphere of aesthetic criticism yet produced in this country, and is the equal of the best by English and German scholars. The concluding act of his literary life was the Harvard Shakespeare, in twenty volumes, published in 1880. This edition, new in the treatment of text, in the introductory matter and notes, at once took its place among the best and most reliable of those intended for the general reader.

After the completion of the Harvard edition he continued teaching regularly at St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire, at St. Mark's, Southboro, and in the Boston University School of Oratory, where he was a great favorite, owing to his kindling intellectual power, quaint humor, and genial manner. One of the masters at St. Paul's writes of him : " The ideal of a well-balanced man was so consistently applied by Dr. Hudson, whether to an author's work or to a boy's education, that he saw indeed how excellent nature's provisions are and how good man's will may make his destiny. These aims and standards come back again and again to us with real force as we recall his noble, manly, and eloquent words. He was poet, critic, philosopher, and preacher all in one,

and his wisdom was enforoed by the loving example of his own genuine goodness."

xx INTRODUCTION

Next to Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Burke, and Webster were the authors he most delighted to expound. His Studies in Wordsworth was a work in every way worthy of him and the poet whom he loved. His admiration for Webster was unbounded, and the quality of all he had written and spoken on him was so true and noble that his distinguished classmate, the Honorable E. J. Phelps, president of the Webster Historical Society, asked him to prepare a life of the great statesman. In February, 1882, Mr. Phelps wrote : " Do not forget that I have appointed you to write that grand life, and shall help you to all constitutional and legal material I know of."

He had thought long and deeply about Webster, his life and times, and had gathered the material which, he was to incorporate into the biography ; he was waiting only until the whole subject should be luminous to his thought when the disease appeared which caused his death. He had not even put pen to paper on this work. His death was sudden and unexpected, as he had been in his usual health and vigor until his last public appearance in a lecture on Cymbeline at Wellesley College. He was much fatigued by the effort; soon glandular swelling appeared in the neck, which gave his physicians some fear that an operation would be necessary. During the week following I saw him daily, and the only apparent change was declining strength ; that whereas he had been willing to talk (as I was more than willing to listen) now he would say : " You must do the talking. I must listen. Tell me of your work." He was as much interested as ever in any question concerning education, — especially the teaching of English, — so that while I had some anxiety as to his condition, I did not think that he was seriously ill. When I left him on the evening before

INTRODUCTION xxi

the operation there was nothing in his manner to indicate that he was apprehensive of the result. The following letter written to his publisher only a few days before his death reveals the nature of the man, and shows how careful he was not to alarm his friends : "I am no better nor, so far as I can judge, am I any worse than when you called. The principal change is a constant failure of strength. To-morrow (Saturday) at twelve o'clock they will perform a very serious operation on me. What the result may be is, of course, all in the dark. If my hour has come, so be it. Give my cordial regards to all the dear girls and boys in the house, and ask them to give me their good wishes and prayers in this hour of trial. God help me ! and God help us all ! " The shock of the operation was too great for his weakened system, and he died on January 16, 1886.

Mr. Hudson was a man of marked peculiarities, physical and mental. He has often been compared to Carlyle in the contour of his head and face. The following comparison was written by Reverend Julius Ward in 1880: "He has the same perceptive assaulting brow, the same eager restless eyes, the same personality in speech, the same impetuous utterance, the same intensity of feeling upon great questions, the same glowing passion when aroused, the same spiritual insight as has Carlyle. He was Carlyle on the lecture platform as truly as Carlyle in conversation. His recent lectures in Hawthorne Hall were rare displays of totally unique powers of public speaking, of a way of saying unforgettable things in an unforgettable style, of throwing great force into single sentences, of speaking the truth so that no one can gainsay it. Whenever he has spoken, by word or pen, he has unconsciously spoken or written with the same impetuosity, the same audacity, the same insight which xxil INTRODUCTION

mark the utterances of the venerable Chelsea sage." He was a man of might when paying a tribute to noble men and worthy causes, of large and liberal spirit ; his mental and moral fiber was stanch and true, and hence he was a delightful friend and implacable enemy. He was brilliant in conversation, quick in repartee, pungent in satire, of delicate irony, of shy and gentle humor, merry within the limits of becoming mirth. He was at his best in the privacy of his library when a few friends were present : then the soft blue eyes would kindle with appreciation, or flash with indignation, the features would light up, the lips quiver, and his utterance would assume forms lucid, graceful, witty, pathetic, and imaginative by turns. He became ' the old man eloquent/ stimulating in wit, wholesome in knowledge, full of the genial sap of humanity. No one who enjoyed these familiar expositions, of mellow eloquence, of large and noble discourse full of the sweets of poetry and the wisdom of philosophy, will ever forget them or the charming personality from whom they emanated.

Of the many tributes of friends, that of Honorable E. J. Phelps, written from the legation of the United States, London, January 30, 1886, is perhaps the most fitting: " Student, Scholar, Gentleman, Christian, happy in his family, his friendships, his distinguished reputation, his well-earned success : not many reach the limit of three-score and ten with so much to be thankful for, so little to deplore."

ESSAYS ON

ENGLISH STUDIES

Preface To School Hamlet

HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL

Preface To The Harvard Edition Of Shakespeare

PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET

Since the first volume of my School Shakespeare made its appearance, which was about nine years ago, very considerable advances have been made in the way of furniture and preparation needful or desirable for such a work. This is especially the case with the play here presented in a new 5 dress. And my own long and constant occupation in teaching classes in Shakespeare has, I would fain hope, now brought me a somewhat larger and riper fitness for doing what is requisite in this particular field. Moreover, the stereotype plates of this play, as also of some others, have 10 been so much and so often used for the pamphlet sections of the volume, that they have become not a little worn and defaced. These are the principal reasons for setting forth the present edition.

I still adhere to my old plan of footnotes, + instead of 15 massing the annotation all together at the end of the play. This is because ample experience has assured me, beyond all perad venture, that whatever of explanation young students need of Shakespeare's text — and they certainly need a good deal — is much better every way when placed directly 20 under the eye, so that they can hardly miss it ; and because at least nineteen in twenty of such pupils will pass over an obscure word or phrase without understanding it, rather than stay to look, up the explanation in another part of the volume. In this instance, however, I have meant to exclude 25 from the footnotes all matter but what appeared fairly needful or useful for a proper understanding of the Poet's language and meaning. As will readily be seen from some of the footnotes, I am indebted to Mr. Joseph Crosby, of Zanesville, Ohio, for most valuable aid towards this part of my 5 task. The matter so used has been communicated to me in a private correspondence with that gentleman, running through several years, and extending over the whole field of Shakespeare, and throwing more light on dark and difficult passages than I have received from any other living com-

10 mentator on the Poet.

Another advantage of the method of footnotes is, that it operates as a wholesome restraint against overdoing the work of annotation. And surely, if we may judge from what has been done, it is so much easier to multiply super-

15 fluous notes than to keep within the bounds of what is fairly needful in this kind, that some such restraint seems eminently desirable. Shakespeare, it scarce need be said, has suffered a great deal from this sort of exegetical incontinence. And perhaps the tendency is stronger now than ever before to

20 smother his workmanship beneath a mass of needless and even obstructive annotation. 4 " An inordinate fecundity of explanation is quite too much the order of the day. There have been divers instances, of late, where we find the gloss, I cannot say outweighing, but certainly far outbulking, the

25 text. Surely it is better to leave students a little unhelped than thus to encumber them with superfluous help. These burdens of unnecessary comment are really a " weariness of the flesh " \ and even hungry minds may well be repelled from a feast so overlaid with quenchers of the appetite. Nor have

30 the Poet's editors yet got their minds untied from the old vice of leaving many of his darkest things unexplained, and of explaining a multitude of things that were better left to

Preface To School Hamlet 5

take care of themselves. For pupils ought not to be put to studying Shakespeare at all, until they have grown to such a measure of intelligence, that they may be safely presumed to know several things without being told.

Such being the case, or at least my view of the case, I am 5 not without apprehension, that some excess may be justly charged upon what is here done. Self-restrained and sparing as I have meant to be, still there is a considerable addition to the number of notes given in my former edition. But, in the matter of annotation, it is not easy to strike just 10 the right medium between too much and too little. Here, again, I have been mainly guided by the results of my own experience in teaching; aiming to give such and so many notes as I have found needful or conducive to a fair understanding of the Poet's thought. 15

In the present stage of Shakespearean study, I suppose it would hardly do, even in a book designed for school use, to leave the matter of textual comment and textual correction altogether untouched. Accordingly there will be found, at the end of the play, a body of Critical Notes, + wherein I 20 have drawn together whatever seemed necessary or desirable co be said in the way of textual criticism, and of comment on such particulars of textual correction as are here admitted. In doing this, I have almost unavoidably been led to note a few instances of different readings. 25

These few cases excepted, I have purposely, and with full deliberation, abstained from everything in the line of variorum comment and citation. For, indeed, such matter, however right and good in its place, can hardly be of any use or interest save to those who are making or intending to 30 make a specialty of Shakespearean lore. But, of the pupils and even the teachers in our schools and colleges, probably not one in five hundred has, or ought to have, any thought of becoming a specialist in Shakespeare, or a linguistic antiquary in any department of study. To such students, a minute discussion or presentation of various readings must 5 needs be a stark impertinence; and its effect, if it have any, can hardly be other than to confuse and perplex their thoughts. In this, as in other walks of human service, the processes of elaborate study are of very limited use, and may well be confined to a few ; while the last results of such