SIX-HUNDRED A YEAR.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 641, 19 October 1909, Page 8

SIX-HUNDRED A YEAR.

ABOUT "POT-BOILERS." SHAKESPEARE AND' DR. NEWMAN

(8i:..T.Q.X.)

The cable tolling of the discovory. that Shakespeare..drew .£6OO a year from his shares in two : theatres comes' happily as' an appendix to Dr. Newman's recent exhortation to artists. Shakespeare, in fact, .anticipated" our worthy Mayor ( by aoting. on his advice three centuries beforo ho uttered it. "If you want to be prosperous"T-such /was. : the effect'.of ..tne Mayor's deliverance to the people who make beautiful things: with a: brush—"you : must produce a class of goods that mil appeal to' tastes.". And the rumble of artistic. indignation, has hardly' died away, when we learn- that Shakespeare, who made pictures with words,-was rich.(we knew • already that .he was well-to-do);' and if we seek: to account' for his six-hundred, a year, we shall, find ; that he got it by producing a class .of: artistic .-goods that pleased the man in the street. .-The.'.'Sonnets," the "Venus and ■Adonis,' , the ."Lucrece" correspond to the ; lofty, and refined, but financially unprofitable, works to. which our. artists wish to devote themselves. "Tho Merchant of Venice," "Hani--let," "Lear," and the.rest were "anticipations of. tho pictures of horses and the "diagram,mfttic; landscapes," desired by Dr. Newman. This remark will strike some Shakespeareans as'profanation-or worse. Let them consider tho facts. "Venus and Adonis" was published in 1593, .and '■ Luciece" in'. 1594,. but nobody knows- , 'how' ": much v!earlier ."they... were" - written." The "Sonnets" were first printed together in 1609, but they are: said to have .been published about ICO:!,- and some.are known to ihavo'.-existed-.in 1595.' ' In words of modest pride, Shakespeare' dedicated, the. tw'o great poems to a cultured nobleman. He did.not trouble to collect and-authorise an edition' of his plays, but he':drew- X'6oo a year from the", .theatres. Clearly'his feelings towards these 'two-'divisipns'of'.his literary.output were just what a New Zealand artist- of to-day would ■entertain , towards.'tho■ pictures he paints-'to please himself or :the "fit. though' few," and the' daubs-which he might produce to sellfto the Philistines; ■■: - 1 :r ; ■■■'.'■'" ;■••■-' '"'"

In acting his and other men's plays, Shake-' speare, of course, went a- step further in'the direction'of "pandering to tbe'mob." And he felt' about it-r-spmetimes; at. any rate—just as other artists febl about painting "pot-boilers.' For instance (Sonnet' 110)t- .'..,'■■ . ■ ••• ,- .

"Alas,''tis true,'l have gone here and there And made; myself .a motley' to the view, Gored mine own thoughts,, sold cheap what ia ' most -dear, ■'' . .'.-• ! Made old oiiences' of;' affections.new;,'. Host true it is,that 1 have looked on' truth 'Askance and strangely." . "• ; '. •• ■ ■ '

In other words,. ho had been' "pot-boiling," both as actor and as playwright. :-■: ; ■" 'Othello,'/The Tempest,' .'As You .Like It,' mere pot-boilors!" orios the indignant, and probably, by this time,- contemptuous' Shulie.spoariolater. ■>, : , _■</. .;.■ .- ■ ■.: .. ." ■.■-.■■ Pot-boilers, certainly;. but not "mere" pot;b6ilers.v Even when . ShakespWe ■ wrote .for the: mob,, he ..was still Shakespeare. ■ Tho 'Tlouse' at the Globe.;, or. :the, •BlacUfriars .wanted jokes and blood, and love-malting. They got,all these; , the. purveyor got his £600 a year;- and the • world got' Mataff, Hamlet; 'and Juliet-Touchstone,. Lady Macbeth, and Portia; It is.apts to , fall - : out-after-..this, fashion when tho man of. genius does i haclc-work. ilacaul.ay wrote his'essays merely as journalism, hut because he was • Macaufay, they are literature. I take a book from'my shelves, and read: /"Johnson's. 'Lives of the Poets' • remains, for all those who have todo with'the journeyman-work', of. letters, . ~the / outstanding and ehming example of. .the' way in which'a merely formal -task,' undertaken to supply, some chance demand of, the. marjeet; may result in the. production ..of a'.living.'.. and : permanent piece, of-.literature. .-•-.•• .--.. •'•.,• ■■ ■•■.Why should' not: a commission: to '"' paint a pet dog, Kgmont withVaioreßroimd of cabbage ■■trees,. result in .ft great picture ? It ."".fSi a-the'painter is * great.artist MayoM. But I think the relationship w en « arl ,., aDd ' bread-and-butter ■ d'eaerres more attention than it has yet received.' .To me,-the SvmV a s , nß e c ? faTe ' : • in ■- ; Addington fc ( s » ™}jn>e on.the painting' and sculpt S wMj , 'V ltalla 1 ; 1te,, - a i, s^ nce is th e footnoS mentions that art, Jn that age rf'i orgknieatio'n adrantaso of tomptini; like to .Architecture .is -as'one -of the fiiin • nf counoil, -.from • persons^ l - of > : t«fi' m h cen K tu^ d: te^i rSCUI^r ? -^ *& m ! fh« ?*7v u7, i* WB . S ? that OB mm Came, why .-he; had never painted the ££l mmm