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INTRODUCTION.

A. D. PAGE

Character of the reign of William Rufus 3 The Norman Conquest in one sense completed, in another undone 3 Feudal developement under Rufus and Flambard 4 Growth of anti-feudal tendencies 4 Extension of the power of England at home 4 Beginning of rivalry between England and France 5 Change in the European position of England 5 Personal character of William Rufus 5-6 His companions and adversaries; Anselm and Helias 6 Last warfare between Normans and English; results of the struggle 6-7 The Norman kingship becomes English 7 Effects of the French war 7 Scheme of the work 8

THE EARLY DAYS OF WILLIAM RUFUS. 1087-1090.

Character of the accession of Rufus; general acceptance without formal election 9-10

Rufus the enemy of the Church, yet his election specially ecclesiastical 10 Wishes of the late King in his favour 11 Special agency of Lanfranc 12 Sept. 8, William Rufus leaves his father's death-bed and 1087. hastens to England 12-13 He brings with him Morkere and Wulfnoth, and again imprisons them 13-14 Duncan and Wulf set free by Robert 13 Meeting of William and Lanfranc 15 Sept. 26. Coronation of William Rufus at Westminster 15 His special oath 16 Dec. 1087- His gifts to churches and to the poor 17-18 Jan.1088. The Christmas Assembly; Odo restored to his earldom 18-19 Special circumstances of William's accession; no other available choice; comparison between William and Robert 19-22

THE FIRST WARS OF WILLIAM RUFUS. 1090-1092.

Character of the year 1089; natural phaenomena 175-176 August 11, The great earthquake 176 1089 Character of the year 1090; beginnings of foreign adventure and domestic oppression 177 The years 1090-1091; affairs of Normandy, Scotland, and Cumberland 177 Connexion of English and Norman history; the same main actors in both 177 Contrast between England and Normandy as to private war 178 The old and the new generation 179 History of Robert of Bell?me 179-181 His character; his engineering skill; his special and wanton cruelty 181-183 His enmity towards Helias, Abbot Ralph, and others 183-184 1110 His final imprisonment by Henry 184 History and character of Robert Count of Meulan and Earl of Leicester 184-187 His fame for wisdom and influence with Rufus and Henry 185-186 1118 Story of his death-bed 187

State of Normandy; interest of those who held lands in both countries 188-189 Temptations to invasion 188-189 Character of Robert; his weak good-nature and lack of justice 190-191 Spread of vice and evil fashions 191 Building of castles; garrisons kept by the Conqueror in the castles of the nobles 192 Robert of Bell?me and others drive out the Duke's forces 193 Robert's lavish grants; Ivry; Brionne 194 The AEtheling Henry claims his mother's lands 195 He buys the C?tentin and Avranchin; his firm rule 196-197 Summer, Henry goes to England; William 1088 promises him his mother's lands 197 He seizes them again; and grants them to Robert Fitz-hamon 198 Autumn, Influence of Odo with Robert 198 1088 Henry comes back to Normandy with Robert of Bell?me; they are seized and imprisoned 199 Earl Roger makes war on the Duke; his fortresses 199-200 Odo's exhortation to Robert 200-202 Affairs of Maine; relations with Fulk of Anjou 202-204 Robert acknowledged in Maine 204 Chief men of the county; Bishop Howel, Geoffrey of Mayenne, Helias of La Fl?che 205 April 21, Appointment of Howel to the see of Le Mans; 1085 his loyalty to the Norman dukes 205-208 Temporal relations to the see of Le Mans 207 Robert before Le Mans; general submission of the county 208-209 Aug.-Sept. Ballon holds out; description of the place; 1088 siege and surrender of the castle 209-211 Robert attacks Saint Cenery; description and history of the place 211-215 Geroy and his descendants; Saint Cenery seized by Mabel 214-215 Siege and surrender of Saint Cenery; blinding of Robert Carrel 215-217 Castle granted to Robert grandson of Geroy 217 Surrender of Alen?on, Bell?me, and other castles; Robert disbands his army 218-219 Robert of Bell?me set free at his father's request 219-220 Henry set free; his good government of Coutances and Avranches 220-222

Easter, Schemes of William Rufus; assembly at 1090 Winchester; the King's speech; war voted by the Witan 221-224 William stays in England; his policy; his advantages in his struggle with Robert 224-226 Power of William's wealth; mercenaries; bribes 226-227 Submission of Saint Valery; beginning of English action on the continent 227-228 Submission of various castles; Aumale, Eu, Gournay, Longueville; description of Gournay and Longueville 228-231 Ralph of Toesny and Count William of Evreux; their kindred; enmity of their wives 231-232 Heloise of Evreux and Isabel of Toesny 232-234 War between Ralph and Count William; Ralph vainly asks help of the Duke; he submits to King William 234 Helias of Saint-Saens; he marries Robert's natural daughter 235 His faithfulness; importance of his castles; Saint-Saens, Bures, and Arques 236-237 William's dealings with France; Robert asks help of Philip; Philip sets out, but is bribed to go back 237-239 The first English subsidy; first direct dealings between England and France; results of Rufus' dealings with Philip 239-241 Private wars not interrupted by the invasion; action of Robert of Bell?me 241-242 Robert of Meulan imprisoned and set free 243 Duke Robert takes Brionne 244 November, Movement at Rouen; the municipal spirit; influence 1090 of Conan; his treaty with William Rufus 245-247 A day fixed for the surrender to William; Duke Robert sends for help 248 November 3. Henry and Robert of Bell?me come to the help of Duke Robert 248-249 Rouen in the eleventh century 249-253 Fright of Duke Robert; division in the city; Henry sends Duke Robert away 253-256 Gilbert of Laigle enters Rouen; slaughter of the citizens; Conan taken prisoner 256 Conan put to death by Henry 257-260 Robert brought back; treatment of the citizens; imprisonment of William son of Ansgar 260-261 November Count William of Evreux marches against Conches 261-266 Siege of Conches; settlement of the county of Evreux on Roger of Conches 262-268 The three dreams; death of Roger of Conches 268-270 1100-1108 Later history of Ralph and William and their wives 270-271 Orderic's picture of Normandy; his English feelings 271-272

Christmas, Assembly at Westminster 273 1090 Feb. 1091 The King crosses to Normandy 273 January Duke Robert helps Robert of Bell?me; siege of Courcy 273-274 The siege raised at the news of William's coming 274 Treaty of Caen; cession of Norman territory to William 275-276 Saint Michael's Mount passes to William, the rest of the C?tentin and Maine to Robert; agreement to despoil Henry 277-279 Settlement of the English and Norman succession; growth of the doctrine of legitimacy 279-280 Dealings with Henry and Eadgar; Eadgar banished from Normandy; he goes to Scotland 280-282 Partisans on each side to be restored 282 The treaty sworn to; it stands but a little while 283 Lent, 1091 Robert and William march against Henry 283 Henry's preparations; Hugh of Chester and others surrender their castles 283 Henry defends himself on Saint Michael's Mount; he is welcomed by the monks 284-285 Siege of the Mount; its position; character of the siege 285-287 Personal anecdotes; story of Rufus and the knight who unhorsed him 287-290 Contrast between William and Robert; Henry allowed to take water, and William's answer 291-292 Feb. 1091 Henry surrenders 292-293 Aug. 1091 William returns to England with his brothers 293 Stories of Henry's adventures; evidence for his presence in England in 1091 293-295

May, 1091 Affairs of Scotland; Malcolm's invasion of Northumberland; he is driven back 295-297 Aug. 1091 William and Robert in England; relations between Robert and Malcolm; stronger side of Robert and Eadgar 297-298 September 3 William's march; state of Durham; restoration of Bishop William; his renewed influence 298-300 Michaelmas Loss of William's ships 300 The kings by the Scots' Water; mediation of Robert and Eadgar; Malcolm does homage to William 301-304 Questions as to the betrothal of Margaret and the earldom of Lothian 303-304 Return of William; signatures to the Durham charters 305-306 December 23 Fresh disputes between William and Robert; Robert and Eadgar leave England 306-307 October 15 Fall of the tower at Winchcombe 307 October 17 Great wind in London 308 1092 Fire in London 308 March 28 Consecration of the church of Salisbury 308-309 April 10 The tower and roof blown down 309 May 9 Completion of Lincoln minster; the church ready for consecration; Thomas of York claims the jurisdiction of Lindesey; the King orders the consecration 309-312 May 6 Remigius dies before the appointed day; the church remains unconsecrated 312

William's conquest of Carlisle; popular mistakes as to Cumberland and Westmoreland 313-314 603-685 Early history of Carlisle; it forms part of the Northumbrian kingdom 314 Scandinavians in Cumberland; destruction of Carlisle 315 1092 Dolfin lord of Carlisle; he is driven out; the city restored and the castle built 315 The Saxon colony at Carlisle 316 The earldom of Carlisle; later history of the city; the castle and the bishopric 317-318 1093 Fortunes of Henry; the men of Domfront choose him as their lord; description of Domfront 319-320 Henry's wars with Robert; he wins back his county 320-321 The castle of Saint James is granted to Earl Hugh 321-323

THE PRIMACY OF ANSELM AND THE ACQUISITION OF NORMANDY. 1093-1097.

Events of the year 1094; affairs of Normandy; their connection with Anselm 434-435 Christmas, Robert's challenge of William; war decreed 435-436 1093-1094 Contributions collected for the war; Anselm unwilling to contribute; he at last gives five hundred pounds 437-438 William first accepts the money and then refuses it 438-440 Dispute with Bishop Maurice of London; judgement of Wulfstan 440-441 February 2, Assembly at Hastings; fleet delayed by the 1094 wind 441-442 February 11 Consecration of the church at Battle; William and Anselm at Battle 442-445 February 3, Death of Bishop Geoffrey of Coutances; his 1093 successor Ralph at Hastings and Battle 444 February 12 Consecration of Robert Bloet to Lincoln; his gift to the King; plot against Anselm; compromise with York 445-446 1104-1123 Character and episcopate of Robert Bloet 447-448 Return of Bishop Herbert of Thetford; he is deprived by the King 448 1094 His restoration; he removes his see to Norwich 448 February 17 The ceremonies of Ash-Wednesday; Anselm rebukes the minions 449-450 Anselm's interview with the King; his silence about the war 450-451 Anselm asks for help in his reforms; he asks leave to hold a synod; his appeal against the fashionable vices 451-453 Grievances of the Church; wrongs of the church tenants 454 He prays the King to fill the vacant abbeys; their relation to the King; hostile answer of Rufus 454-456 Comparison of Lanfranc and Anselm; estimate of Anselm's conduct 456-457 Anselm tries to recover the King's favour; the bishops advise him to give more money; his grounds for refusing 457-460 The King more hostile than ever; Anselm leaves Hastings 460 March 19, William crosses to Normandy 461 1094 Vain attempts to settle the dispute between William and Robert; verdict of the guarantors against William 461 Castles held by William; taking of Bures 462-463 Robert calls in Philip; siege and surrender of Argentan; ransom of the prisoners 463-464 Robert takes La Houlme 465 Difficulties of Rufus; further taxation; levy of English soldiers; Flambard takes away the soldiers' money 465-466 Rufus buys off Philip 466-467 Contemporary notices of the campaign; differences between England and Normandy; private wars go on in Normandy 467-468 Relations between Rufus and Henry; war at Saint Cenery; the castle taken by Robert of Bell?me 468-469 Henry and Earl Hugh summoned to Eu 469 October 31 They go to Southampton and keep Christmas in London 470 December 28 The King comes to England; William and Henry reconciled 470 February, Henry goes to Normandy; his warfare with 1095 Robert 470-471 Norman supporters of William 471-474 Wretchedness of England; causes for the King's return; affairs of Scotland and Wales; plots at home 474-475

Notes of the year 1095; councils of the year 476 Jan., Feb., 1095 Movements of William; alleged Welsh campaign 476-477 April, 1094- Last days and sickness of Wulfstan; his Jan., 1095 friendshipwith Bishop Robert of Hereford 477-479 January 18, Death of Wulfstan; his appearance to Bishop 1095 Robert 480 January 22 His burial 480 Anselm and Urban; need of the pallium; elder usage as to it 481-484 Anselm asks leave to go to Urban for the pallium; William refuses to acknowledge any pope 484-485 Anselm asks for an assembly to discuss the question; he will leave the realm if he may not acknowledge Urban 485-486 Frequency of assemblies under Rufus; a special meeting summoned 487 Sunday, Assembly at Rockingham 487 March 11 Estimate of the question; the King technically right; no real objection to Urban on his part 487-489 History and description of Rockingham 490-491 Place of meeting; the King's inner council 491 Anselm's opening speech 492 The real point avoided on the King's side; Anselm treated as an accused person 493 Conduct of the bishops; the meeting adjourned till Monday 493-494 Monday, The bishops counsel submission; Anselm's March 12 second speech; he asserts no exclusive claims; his two duties 494-496 Position of England towards the popes; Anselm and William of Saint-Calais 496-497 Anselm not the first to appeal to Rome 497 Answer of the bishops; the King's messages; the bishops advise him to submit to the King in all things 497-499 Anselm sleeps during the debate 498 The bishops' definition of freedom; Anselm will not forsake Urban 499-500 Schemes of William of Saint-Calais against Anselm; he aspires to the archbishopric 500-501 Objects of the King; promises of William of Saint-Calais; his speech to Anselm 502-503 William's imperial claims; his relations at the time to the vassal kingdoms 503-505 The real question hitherto evaded; Anselm's challenge; he states the real case 505-506 New position of the bishops 506 Anselm insulted; popular feeling on his side; story of Anselm and the knight 506-508 Perplexity of the King; failure of William of Saint-Calais; the assembly adjourned 508-509 Tuesday, Debates in the inner council; William of March 13 Saint-Calais recommends force; the lay nobles refuse; speeches of the King and Robert of Meulan 510-511 The King bids the bishops renounce Anselm; he withdraws his protection; Anselm's answer 511-513 The King turns to the lay lords; they support Anselm 513-514 Shame of the bishops; the King further examines them; his rewards and punishments 514-516 Anselm wishes to leave England; another adjournment 516-517 Wednesday Anselm summoned to the King's presence; March 14 the lay lords propose a truce; adjournment to May 20 517-519 Importance of the meeting at Rockingham 519 William keeps faith to Anselm personally, but oppresses his friends 519-521

March-May Events of the time of truce; assemblies of 1095 the year 521 Position of Urban 521 March 1-7, Council of Piacenza; its decrees; no mention 1095 of English affairs 522-523 William's schemes to turn the Pope against Anselm; mission of Gerard and William of Warelwast 523-524 April 10 Urban at Cremona; dealings of William's messengers with Urban 525 The Sicilian monarchy; relations between England and Sicily 525-526 Gerard and William bring Walter of Albano as Legate; he brings a pallium 526-527 Secrecy of his errand; his interview with the King; William acknowledges Urban 527-528 Walter refuses to depose Anselm 528-529 William and his counsellors outwitted by the Legate; he is driven to a reconciliation with Anselm 529 May 13 Whitsun Assembly; the King's message to Anselm 530 Anselm will not pay for the pallium; Anselm and William reconciled; their friendly discourse 531-532 Anselm refuses to take the pallium from the King 532 Popular aspect of the assembly 533 Anselm absolves two bishops, Osmund of Salisbury and Robert of Hereford; he restores Wulfrith of Saint David's 533-534 June 10 Anselm receives the pallium at Canterbury 534-535 June 26 Death of Bishop Robert of Hereford; the Legate stays in England; his dealings with Anselm 535-537 The King's northern march; Anselm entrusted with the defence of Canterbury 537-538 Letters between Anselm and the Legate; the bishops object to Anselm's position; his answer 538-540 Question about the monks at Christ Church; Anselm and his tenants 540-541 Christmas, Assembly at Windsor and Salisbury 541-542 1095-1096 January 6 Anselm attends William of Saint-Calais on his death-bed 541-542 June 6 Consecration of bishops; Samson of Worcester and Gerard of Hereford 542-544 Anselm consecrates Irish bishops 544

Events of the year 1096-1097 571 State of Wales at the end of 1096 571 April, 1097 Assembly at Windsor; Welsh war and seeming conquest 572 William complains of Anselm's contingent; position of the Archbishop's knights; Anselm summoned to the King's court 572-574 Change in Anselm's feelings; his yearnings towards Rome; aspect of his conduct 574-578 Causes of his loss of general support 578 His continued demands of reform; he determines not to answer the summons but to make a last effort 579-580 May 24, Whitsun assembly; Anselm favourably received; 1097 his last appeal 581 He determines to ask leave to go to Rome; the King refuses 581-583 June-Aug., The charge against Anselm withdrawn; affairs 1097 of Wales; another assembly; Anselm's request again refused 583 Wednesday, Assembly at Winchester; Anselm renews his October 14 request; he is again impleaded 584-585 Thursday, Anselm and the bishops and lords; speech of October 15 Walkelin; the bishops' portrait of themselves; Anselm's answer 586-588 Part of the lay lords; Anselm's promise to obey the customs; he is charged with breach of promise; alternatives given him 588-589 Anselm and the King; Anselm's discourse; answer of Count Robert; the barons against Anselm 589-592 Anselm allowed to go, but the archbishopric to be seized 592-593 Anselm's last interview with Rufus; he blesses him 593-594 Anselm at Canterbury; he takes the pilgrim's staff 594 His treatment at Dover; he crosses to Whitsand 595 The King seizes the archbishopric; Anselm's acts declared null; the monks keep Peckham 595-596 Rebuilding of the choir of Christ Church; works of Prior Ernulf 596-597 Comparison of the trials of William of Saint-Calais, Anselm, and Thomas 597-605 Anselm does not strictly appeal to the Pope 598 He asserts no clerical privilege 599 Question of observing the customs 600 Comparison of the proceedings in each case 600-601 Architectural arrangements 601-602 Constitution of the assemblies; they become less popular; lessened freedom of speech 602-603 The inner and outer council; foreshadowing of Lords and Commons 603-604 The Witan and the Theningmannagem?t 604 Behaviour of Rufus, of Henry the First, of Henry the Second 605 Effect on Anselm of his foreign sojourn 606 His journey; dealings of Odo of Burgundy; he reaches Rome 607 Councils of Lateran and Bari; story of the cope of Beneventum 607-610 Position of Rufus; he is never excommunicated; probable effect of excommunication 611-612 Anselm at Lyons; his letters to the Pope 612 His letters to the King from Rome; William's treatment of the letters 613 Mission of William of Warelwast 614-620 Nov., 1097- William on the Continent 614 April, 1099 Anselm at Schiavia; he writes "Cur Deus Homo" 615 Anselm and Urban before Capua; Anselm and the Saracens 615-617 Anselm wishes to resign the archbishopric; Urban forbids him 617-618 October 1, Council of Bari 618 1098 Anselm at Rome; dealings between the Pope and William of Warelwast; the excommunication threatened and respited 618-620 Urban's treatment of Anselm 620-621 April 12, Council of Lateran; protest of Reingard of 1099 Lucca; Anselm goes to Lyons 621-622 July 29 Death of Urban; William's words on his death 622-623

Aug. 13, 1099-Paschal the Second Pope; William's words on Jan. 21, 1108 his election 623

CHRONOLOGY OF THE YEARS 1087-1102.

It appears a point of some mystery to the present writer that Bernard Shaw should have been so long unrecognised and almost in beggary. I should have thought his talent was of the ringing and arresting sort; such as even editors and publishers would have sense enough to seize. Yet it is quite certain that he almost starved in London for many years, writing occasional columns for an advertisement or words for a picture. And it is equally certain that in those days of desperation he again and again threw up chances and flung back good bargains which did not suit his unique and erratic sense of honour. The fame of having first offered Shaw to the public upon a platform worthy of him belongs, like many other public services, to Mr. William Archer.

I say it seems odd that such a writer should not be appreciated in a flash; but upon this point there is evidently a real difference of opinion, and it constitutes for me the strangest difficulty of the subject. I hear many people complain that Bernard Shaw deliberately mystifies them. I cannot imagine what they mean; it seems to me that he deliberately insults them. His language, especially on moral questions, is generally as straight and solid as that of a bargee and far less ornate and symbolic than that of a hansom-cabman. The prosperous English Philistine complains that Mr. Shaw is making a fool of him. Whereas Mr. Shaw is not in the least making a fool of him; Mr. Shaw is, with laborious lucidity, calling him a fool. G. B. S. calls a landlord a thief; and the landlord, instead of denying or resenting it, says, "Ah, that fellow hides his meaning so cleverly that one can never make out what he means, it is all so fine spun and fantastical." G. B. S. calls a statesman a liar to his face, and the statesman cries in a kind of ecstasy, "Ah, what quaint, intricate and half-tangled trains of thought! Ah, what elusive and many-coloured mysteries of half-meaning!" I think it is always quite plain what Mr. Shaw means, even when he is joking, and it generally means that the people he is talking to ought to howl aloud for their sins. But the average representative of them undoubtedly treats the Shavian meaning as tricky and complex, when it is really direct and offensive. He always accuses Shaw of pulling his leg, at the exact moment when Shaw is pulling his nose.

This prompt and pungent style he learnt in the open, upon political tubs and platforms; and he is very legitimately proud of it. He boasts of being a demagogue; "The cart and the trumpet for me," he says, with admirable good sense. Everyone will remember the effective appearance of Cyrano de Bergerac in the first act of the fine play of that name; when instead of leaping in by any hackneyed door or window, he suddenly springs upon a chair above the crowd that has so far kept him invisible; "les bras crois?s, le feutre en bataille, la moustache h?riss?e, le nez terrible." I will not go so far as to say that when Bernard Shaw sprang upon a chair or tub in Trafalgar Square he had the hat in battle, or even that he had the nose terrible. But just as we see Cyrano best when he thus leaps above the crowd, I think we may take this moment of Shaw stepping on his little platform to see him clearly as he then was, and even as he has largely not ceased to be. I, at least, have only known him in his middle age; yet I think I can see him, younger yet only a little more alert, with hair more red but with face yet paler, as he first stood up upon some cart or barrow in the tossing glare of the gas.

The first fact that one realises about Shaw is his voice. Primarily it is the voice of an Irishman, and then something of the voice of a musician. It possibly explains much of his career; a man may be permitted to say so many impudent things with so pleasant an intonation. But the voice is not only Irish and agreeable, it is also frank and as it were inviting conference. This goes with a style and gesture which can only be described as at once very casual and very emphatic. He assumes that bodily supremacy which goes with oratory, but he assumes it with almost ostentatious carelessness; he throws back the head, but loosely and laughingly. He is at once swaggering and yet shrugging his shoulders, as if to drop from them the mantle of the orator which he has confidently assumed. Lastly, no man ever used voice or gesture better for the purpose of expressing certainty; no man can say "I tell Mr. Jones he is totally wrong" with more air of unforced and even casual conviction.

The fiction was largely dropped; but when he began work he felt his way by the avenues of three arts. He was an art critic, a dramatic critic, and a musical critic; and in all three, it need hardly be said, he fought for the newest style and the most revolutionary school. He wrote on all these as he would have written on anything; but it was, I fancy, about the music that he cared most.

It may often be remarked that mathematicians love and understand music more than they love or understand poetry. Bernard Shaw is in much the same condition; indeed, in attempting to do justice to Shakespeare's poetry, he always calls it "word music." It is not difficult to explain this special attachment of the mere logician to music. The logician, like every other man on earth, must have sentiment and romance in his existence; in every man's life, indeed, which can be called a life at all, sentiment is the most solid thing. But if the extreme logician turns for his emotions to poetry, he is exasperated and bewildered by discovering that the words of his own trade are used in an entirely different meaning. He conceives that he understands the word "visible," and then finds Milton applying it to darkness, in which nothing is visible. He supposes that he understands the word "hide," and then finds Shelley talking of a poet hidden in the light. He has reason to believe that he understands the common word "hung"; and then William Shakespeare, Esquire, of Stratford-on-Avon, gravely assures him that the tops of the tall sea waves were hung with deafening clamours on the slippery clouds. That is why the common arithmetician prefers music to poetry. Words are his scientific instruments. It irritates him that they should be anyone else's musical instruments. He is willing to see men juggling, but not men juggling with his own private tools and possessions--his terms. It is then that he turns with an utter relief to music. Here are all the same fascination and inspiration, all the same purity and plunging force as in poetry; but not requiring any verbal confession that light conceals things or that darkness can be seen in the dark. Music is mere beauty; it is beauty in the abstract, beauty in solution. It is a shapeless and liquid element of beauty, in which a man may really float, not indeed affirming the truth, but not denying it. Bernard Shaw, as I have already said, is infinitely far above all such mere mathematicians and pedantic reasoners; still his feeling is partly the same. He adores music because it cannot deal with romantic terms either in their right or their wrong sense. Music can be romantic without reminding him of Shakespeare and Walter Scott, with whom he has had personal quarrels. Music can be Catholic without reminding him verbally of the Catholic Church, which he has never seen, and is sure he does not like. Bernard Shaw can agree with Wagner, the musician, because he speaks without words; if it had been Wagner the man he would certainly have had words with him. Therefore I would suggest that Shaw's love of music may itself be considered in the first case as the imaginative safety-valve of the rationalistic Irishman.

This much may be said conjecturally over the present signature; but more must not be said. Bernard Shaw understands music so much better than I do that it is just possible that he is, in that tongue and atmosphere, all that he is not elsewhere. While he is writing with a pen I know his limitations as much as I admire his genius; and I know it is true to say that he does not appreciate romance. But while he is playing on the piano he may be cocking a feather, drawing a sword or draining a flagon for all I know. While he is speaking I am sure that there are some things he does not understand. But while he is listening he may understand everything, including God and me. Upon this part of him I am a reverent agnostic; it is well to have some such dark continent in the character of a man of whom one writes. It preserves two very important things--modesty in the biographer and mystery in the biography.

But Shaw's attack on Shakespeare, though exaggerated for the fun of the thing, was not by any means the mere folly or firework paradox that has been supposed. He meant what he said; what was called his levity was merely the laughter of a man who enjoyed saying what he meant--an occupation which is indeed one of the greatest larks in life. Moreover, it can honestly be said that Shaw did good by shaking the mere idolatry of Him of Avon. That idolatry was bad for England; it buttressed our perilous self-complacency by making us think that we alone had, not merely a great poet, but the one poet above criticism. It was bad for literature; it made a minute model out of work that was really a hasty and faulty masterpiece. And it was bad for religion and morals that there should be so huge a terrestrial idol, that we should put such utter and unreasoning trust in any child of man. It is true that it was largely through Shaw's own defects that he beheld the defects of Shakespeare. But it needed someone equally prosaic to resist what was perilous in the charm of such poetry; it may not be altogether a mistake to send a deaf man to destroy the rock of the sirens.

This attitude of Shaw illustrates of course all three of the divisions or aspects to which the reader's attention has been drawn. It was partly the attitude of the Irishman objecting to the Englishman turning his mere artistic taste into a religion; especially when it was a taste merely taught him by his aunts and uncles. In Shaw's opinion the English do not really enjoy Shakespeare or even admire Shakespeare; one can only say, in the strong colloquialism, that they swear by Shakespeare. He is a mere god; a thing to be invoked. And Shaw's whole business was to set up the things which were to be sworn by as things to be sworn at. It was partly again the revolutionist in pursuit of pure novelty, hating primarily the oppression of the past, almost hating history itself. For Bernard Shaw the prophets were to be stoned after, and not before, men had built their sepulchres. There was a Yankee smartness in the man which was irritated at the idea of being dominated by a person dead for three hundred years; like Mark Twain, he wanted a fresher corpse.

It is odd that Bernard Shaw's chief error or insensibility should have been the instrument of his noblest affirmation. The denunciation of Shakespeare was a mere misunderstanding. But the denunciation of Shakespeare's pessimism was the most splendidly understanding of all his utterances. This is the greatest thing in Shaw, a serious optimism--even a tragic optimism. Life is a thing too glorious to be enjoyed. To be is an exacting and exhausting business; the trumpet though inspiring is terrible. Nothing that he ever wrote is so noble as his simple reference to the sturdy man who stepped up to the Keeper of the Book of Life and said, "Put down my name, Sir." It is true that Shaw called this heroic philosophy by wrong names and buttressed it with false metaphysics; that was the weakness of the age. The temporary decline of theology had involved the neglect of philosophy and all fine thinking; and Bernard Shaw had to find shaky justifications in Schopenhauer for the sons of God shouting for joy. He called it the Will to Live--a phrase invented by Prussian professors who would like to exist, but can't. Afterwards he asked people to worship the Life-Force; as if one could worship a hyphen. But though he covered it with crude new names he was on the side of the good old cause; the oldest and the best of all causes, the cause of creation against destruction, the cause of yes against no, the cause of the seed against the stony earth and the star against the abyss.

In any case it can be asserted that the general aim of the work was to exalt the immediate conclusions of practice against the general conclusions of theory. Shaw objected to the solution of every problem in a play being by its nature a general solution, applicable to all other such problems. He disliked the entrance of a universal justice at the end of the last act; treading down all the personal ultimatums and all the varied certainties of men. He disliked the god from the machine--because he was from a machine. But even without the machine he tended to dislike the god; because a god is more general than a man. His enemies have accused Shaw of being anti-domestic, a shaker of the roof-tree. But in this sense Shaw may be called almost madly domestic. He wishes each private problem to be settled in private, without reference to sociological ethics. And the only objection to this kind of gigantic casuistry is that the theatre is really too small to discuss it. It would not be fair to play David and Goliath on a stage too small to admit Goliath. And it is not fair to discuss private morality on a stage too small to admit the enormous presence of public morality; that character which has not appeared in a play since the Middle Ages; whose name is Everyman and whose honour we have all in our keeping.

The brain of Bernard Shaw was like a wedge in the literal sense. Its sharpest end was always in front; and it split our society from end to end the moment it had entrance at all. As I have said he was long unheard of; but he had not the tragedy of many authors, who were heard of long before they were heard. When you had read any Shaw you read all Shaw. When you had seen one of his plays you waited for more. And when he brought them out in volume form, you did what is repugnant to any literary man--you bought a book.

The truth is that in this place Bernard Shaw comes within an inch of expressing something that is not properly expressed anywhere else; the idea of marriage. Marriage is not a mere chain upon love as the anarchists say; nor is it a mere crown upon love as the sentimentalists say. Marriage is a fact, an actual human relation like that of motherhood which has certain human habits and loyalties, except in a few monstrous cases where it is turned to torture by special insanity and sin. A marriage is neither an ecstasy nor a slavery; it is a commonwealth; it is a separate working and fighting thing like a nation. Kings and diplomatists talk of "forming alliances" when they make weddings; but indeed every wedding is primarily an alliance. The family is a fact even when it is not an agreeable fact, and a man is part of his wife even when he wishes he wasn't. The twain are one flesh--yes, even when they are not one spirit. Man is duplex. Man is a quadruped.

Of this ancient and essential relation there are certain emotional results, which are subtle, like all the growths of nature. And one of them is the attitude of the wife to the husband, whom she regards at once as the strongest and most helpless of human figures. She regards him in some strange fashion at once as a warrior who must make his way and as an infant who is sure to lose his way. The man has emotions which exactly correspond; sometimes looking down at his wife and sometimes up at her; for marriage is like a splendid game of see-saw. Whatever else it is, it is not comradeship. This living, ancestral bond has been twice expressed splendidly in literature. The man's incurable sense of the mother in his lawful wife was uttered by Browning in one of his two or three truly shattering lines of genius, when he makes the execrable Guido fall back finally upon the fact of marriage and the wife whom he has trodden like mire:

"Christ! Maria! God, Pompilia, will you let them murder me?"

And the woman's witness to the same fact has been best expressed by Bernard Shaw in this great scene where she remains with the great stalwart successful public man because he is really too little to run alone.

There are one or two errors in the play; and they are all due to the primary error of despising the mental attitude of romance, which is the only key to real human conduct. For instance, the love making of the young poet is all wrong. He is supposed to be a romantic and amorous boy; and therefore the dramatist tries to make him talk turgidly, about seeking for "an archangel with purple wings" who shall be worthy of his lady. But a lad in love would never talk in this mock heroic style; there is no period at which the young male is more sensitive and serious and afraid of looking a fool. This is a blunder; but there is another much bigger and blacker. It is completely and disastrously false to the whole nature of falling in love to make the young Eugene complain of the cruelty which makes Candida defile her fair hands with domestic duties. No boy in love with a beautiful woman would ever feel disgusted when she peeled potatoes or trimmed lamps. He would like her to be domestic. He would simply feel that the potatoes had become poetical and the lamps gained an extra light. This may be irrational; but we are not talking of rationality, but of the psychology of first love. It may be very unfair to women that the toil and triviality of potato peeling should be seen through a glamour of romance; but the glamour is quite as certain a fact as the potatoes. It may be a bad thing in sociology that men should deify domesticity in girls as something dainty and magical; but all men do. Personally I do not think it a bad thing at all; but that is another argument. The argument here is that Bernard Shaw, in aiming at mere realism, makes a big mistake in reality. Misled by his great heresy of looking at emotions from the outside, he makes Eugene a cold-blooded prig at the very moment when he is trying, for his own dramatic purposes, to make him a hot-blooded lover. He makes the young lover an idealistic theoriser about the very things about which he really would have been a sort of mystical materialist. Here the romantic Irishman is much more right than the very rational one; and there is far more truth to life as it is in Lover's couplet--

"And envied the chicken That Peggy was pickin'."

than in Eugene's solemn, aesthetic protest against the potato-skins and the lamp-oil. For dramatic purposes, G. B. S., even if he despises romance, ought to comprehend it. But then, if once he comprehended romance, he would not despise it.

This business of Dr. Paramore's disease while it is the most farcical thing in the play is also the most philosophic and important. The rest of the figures, including the Philanderer himself, are in the full sense of those blasting and obliterating words "funny without being vulgar," that is, funny without being of any importance to the masses of men. It is a play about a dashing and advanced "Ibsen Club," and the squabble between the young Ibsenites and the old people who are not yet up to Ibsen. It would be hard to find a stronger example of Shaw's only essential error, modernity--which means the seeking for truth in terms of time. Only a few years have passed and already almost half the wit of that wonderful play is wasted, because it all turns on the newness of a fashion that is no longer new. Doubtless many people still think the Ibsen drama a great thing, like the French classical drama. But going to "The Philanderer" is like going among periwigs and rapiers and hearing that the young men are now all for Racine. What makes such work sound unreal is not the praise of Ibsen, but the praise of the novelty of Ibsen. Any advantage that Bernard Shaw had over Colonel Craven I have over Bernard Shaw; we who happen to be born last have the meaningless and paltry triumph in that meaningless and paltry war. We are the superiors by that silliest and most snobbish of all superiorities, the mere aristocracy of time. All works must become thus old and insipid which have ever tried to be "modern," which have consented to smell of time rather than of eternity. Only those who have stooped to be in advance of their time will ever find themselves behind it.

When this doubt is once off one's conscience one can lose oneself in the bottomless beatitude of Lady Cicely Waynefleet, one of the most living and laughing things that her maker has made. I do not know any stronger way of stating the beauty of the character than by saying that it was written specially for Ellen Terry, and that it is, with Beatrice, one of the very few characters in which the dramatist can claim some part of her triumph.

It is, I think, no injustice to Bernard Shaw to say that he does not attempt to make his Caesar superior except in this naked and negative sense. There is no suggestion, as there is in the Jehovah of the Old Testament, that the very cruelty of the higher being conceals some tremendous and even tortured love. Caesar is superior to other men not because he loves more, but because he hates less. Caesar is magnanimous not because he is warm-hearted enough to pardon, but because he is not warm-hearted enough to avenge. There is no suggestion anywhere in the play that he is hiding any great genial purpose or powerful tenderness towards men. In order to put this point beyond a doubt the dramatist has introduced a soliloquy of Caesar alone with the Sphinx. There if anywhere he would have broken out into ultimate brotherhood or burning pity for the people. But in that scene between the Sphinx and Caesar, Caesar is as cold and as lonely and as dead as the Sphinx.

But whether the Shavian Caesar is a sound ideal or no, there can be little doubt that he is a very fine reality. Shaw has done nothing greater as a piece of artistic creation. If the man is a little like a statue, it is a statue by a great sculptor; a statue of the best period. If his nobility is a little negative in its character, it is the negative darkness of the great dome of night; not as in some "new moralities" the mere mystery of the coal-hole. Indeed, this somewhat austere method of work is very suitable to Shaw when he is serious. There is nothing Gothic about his real genius; he could not build a mediaeval cathedral in which laughter and terror are twisted together in stone, molten by mystical passion. He can build, by way of amusement, a Chinese pagoda; but when he is in earnest, only a Roman temple. He has a keen eye for truth; but he is one of those people who like, as the saying goes, to put down the truth in black and white. He is always girding and jeering at romantics and idealists because they will not put down the truth in black and white. But black and white are not the only two colours in the world. The modern man of science who writes down a fact in black and white is not more but less accurate than the mediaeval monk who wrote it down in gold and scarlet, sea-green and turquoise. Nevertheless, it is a good thing that the more austere method should exist separately, and that some men should be specially good at it. Bernard Shaw is specially good at it; he is pre-eminently a black and white artist.

And as a study in black and white nothing could be better than this sketch of Julius Caesar. He is not so much represented as "bestriding the earth like a Colossus" , but rather walking the earth with a sort of stern levity, lightly touching the planet and yet spurning it away like a stone. He walks like a winged man who has chosen to fold his wings. There is something creepy even about his kindness; it makes the men in front of him feel as if they were made of glass. The nature of the Caesarian mercy is massively suggested. Caesar dislikes a massacre, not because it is a great sin, but because it is a small sin. It is felt that he classes it with a flirtation or a fit of the sulks; a senseless temporary subjugation of man's permanent purpose by his passing and trivial feelings. He will plunge into slaughter for a great purpose, just as he plunges into the sea. But to be stung into such action he deems as undignified as to be tipped off the pier. In a singularly fine passage Cleopatra, having hired assassins to stab an enemy, appeals to her wrongs as justifying her revenge, and says, "If you can find one man in all Africa who says that I did wrong, I will be crucified by my own slaves." "If you can find one man in all the world," replies Caesar, "who can see that you did wrong, he will either conquer the world as I have done or be crucified by it." That is the high water mark of this heathen sublimity; and we do not feel it inappropriate, or unlike Shaw, when a few minutes afterwards the hero is saluted with a blaze of swords.

As usually happens in the author's works, there is even more about Julius Caesar in the preface than there is in the play. But in the preface I think the portrait is less imaginative and more fanciful. He attempts to connect his somewhat chilly type of superman with the heroes of the old fairy tales. But Shaw should not talk about the fairy tales; for he does not feel them from the inside. As I have said, on all this side of historic and domestic traditions Bernard Shaw is weak and deficient. He does not approach them as fairy tales, as if he were four, but as "folk-lore" as if he were forty. And he makes a big mistake about them which he would never have made if he had kept his birthday and hung up his stocking, and generally kept alive inside him the firelight of a home. The point is so peculiarly characteristic of Bernard Shaw, and is indeed so much of a summary of his most interesting assertion and his most interesting error, that it deserves a word by itself, though it is a word which must be remembered in connection with nearly all the other plays.

Some of the incidental wit in the Caesarian drama is excellent although it is upon the whole less spontaneous and perfect than in the previous plays. One of its jests may be mentioned in passing, not merely to draw attention to its failure but because it is the best opportunity for mentioning one of the writer's minor notions to which he obstinately adheres. He describes the Ancient Briton in Caesar's train as being exactly like a modern respectable Englishman. As a joke for a Christmas pantomime this would be all very well; but one expects the jokes of Bernard Shaw to have some intellectual root, however fantastic the flower. And obviously all historic common sense is against the idea that that dim Druid people, whoever they were, who dwelt in our land before it was lit up by Rome or loaded with varied invasions, were a precise facsimile of the commercial society of Birmingham or Brighton. But it is a part of the Puritan in Bernard Shaw, a part of the taut and high-strung quality of his mind, that he will never admit of any of his jokes that it was only a joke. When he has been most witty he will passionately deny his own wit; he will say something which Voltaire might envy and then declare that he has got it all out of a Blue book. And in connection with this eccentric type of self-denial, we may notice this mere detail about the Ancient Briton. Someone faintly hinted that a blue Briton when first found by Caesar might not be quite like Mr. Broadbent; at the touch Shaw poured forth a torrent of theory, explaining that climate was the only thing that affected nationality; and that whatever races came into the English or Irish climate would become like the English or Irish. Now the modern theory of race is certainly a piece of stupid materialism; it is an attempt to explain the things we are sure of, France, Scotland, Rome, Japan, by means of the things we are not sure of at all, prehistoric conjectures, Celts, Mongols, and Iberians. Of course there is a reality in race; but there is no reality in the theories of race offered by some ethnological professors. Blood, perhaps, is thicker than water; but brains are sometimes thicker than anything. But if there is one thing yet more thick and obscure and senseless than this theory of the omnipotence of race it is, I think, that to which Shaw has fled for refuge from it; this doctrine of the omnipotence of climate. Climate again is something; but if climate were everything, Anglo-Indians would grow more and more to look like Hindoos, which is far from being the case. Something in the evil spirit of our time forces people always to pretend to have found some material and mechanical explanation. Bernard Shaw has filled all his last days with affirmations about the divinity of the non-mechanical part of man, the sacred quality in creation and choice. Yet it never seems to have occurred to him that the true key to national differentiations is the key of the will and not of the environment. It never crosses the modern mind to fancy that perhaps a people is chiefly influenced by how that people has chosen to behave. If I have to choose between race and weather I prefer race; I would rather be imprisoned and compelled by ancestors who were once alive than by mud and mists which never were. But I do not propose to be controlled by either; to me my national history is a chain of multitudinous choices. It is neither blood nor rain that has made England, but hope, the thing that all those dead men have desired. France was not France because she was made to be by the skulls of the Celts or by the sun of Gaul. France was France because she chose.

As has been said already, there must be some truth in every popular impression. And the impression that Shaw, the most savagely serious man of his time, is a mere music-hall artist must have reference to such rare outbreaks as these. As a rule his speeches are full, not only of substance, but of substances, materials like pork, mahogany, lead, and leather. There is no man whose arguments cover a more Napoleonic map of detail. It is true that he jokes; but wherever he is he has topical jokes, one might almost say family jokes. If he talks to tailors he can allude to the last absurdity about buttons. If he talks to the soldiers he can see the exquisite and exact humour of the last gun-carriage. But when all his powerful practicality is allowed, there does run through him this erratic levity, an explosion of ineptitude. It is a queer quality in literature. It is a sort of cold extravagance; and it has made him all his enemies.

For two reasons I have called this concluding series of plays not again by the name of "The Dramatist," but by the general name of "The Philosopher." The first reason is that given above, that we have come to the time of his triumph and may therefore treat him as having gained complete possession of a pulpit of his own. But there is a second reason: that it was just about this time that he began to create not only a pulpit of his own, but a church and creed of his own. It is a very vast and universal religion; and it is not his fault that he is the only member of it. The plainer way of putting it is this: that here, in the hour of his earthly victory, there dies in him the old mere denier, the mere dynamiter of criticism. In the warmth of popularity he begins to wish to put his faith positively; to offer some solid key to all creation. Perhaps the irony in the situation is this: that all the crowds are acclaiming him as the blasting and hypercritical buffoon, while he himself is seriously rallying his synthetic power, and with a grave face telling himself that it is time he had a faith to preach. His final success as a sort of charlatan coincides with his first grand failures as a theologian.

Now it is an irritating and pathetic thing that the three most popular phrases about Shaw are false. Modern criticism, like all weak things, is overloaded with words. In a healthy condition of language a man finds it very difficult to say the right thing, but at last says it. In this empire of journalese a man finds it so very easy to say the wrong thing that he never thinks of saying anything else. False or meaningless phrases lie so ready to his hand that it is easier to use them than not to use them. These wrong terms picked up through idleness are retained through habit, and so the man has begun to think wrong almost before he has begun to think at all. Such lumbering logomachy is always injurious and oppressive to men of spirit, imagination or intellectual honour, and it has dealt very recklessly and wrongly with Bernard Shaw. He has contrived to get about three newspaper phrases tied to his tail; and those newspaper phrases are all and separately wrong. The three superstitions about him, it will be conceded, are generally these: first that he desires "problem plays," second that he is "paradoxical," and third that in his dramas as elsewhere he is specially "a Socialist." And the interesting thing is that when we come to his philosophy, all these three phrases are quite peculiarly inapplicable.

And just as there is nothing really problematic in Shaw's mind, so there is nothing really paradoxical. The meaning of the word paradoxical may indeed be made the subject of argument. In Greek, of course, it simply means something which is against the received opinion; in that sense a missionary remonstrating with South Sea cannibals is paradoxical. But in the much more important world, where words are used and altered in the using, paradox does not mean merely this: it means at least something of which the antinomy or apparent inconsistency is sufficiently plain in the words used, and most commonly of all it means an idea expressed in a form which is verbally contradictory. Thus, for instance, the great saying, "He that shall lose his life, the same shall save it," is an example of what modern people mean by a paradox. If any learned person should read this book he can content himself with putting it this way, that the moderns mistakenly say paradox when they should say oxymoron. Ultimately, in any case, it may be agreed that we commonly mean by a paradox some kind of collision between what is seemingly and what is really true.

This blindness to paradox everywhere perplexes his outlook. He cannot understand marriage because he will not understand the paradox of marriage; that the woman is all the more the house for not being the head of it. He cannot understand patriotism, because he will not understand the paradox of patriotism; that one is all the more human for not merely loving humanity. He does not understand Christianity because he will not understand the paradox of Christianity; that we can only really understand all myths when we know that one of them is true. I do not under-rate him for this anti-paradoxical temper; I concede that much of his finest and keenest work in the way of intellectual purification would have been difficult or impossible without it. But I say that here lies the limitation of that lucid and compelling mind; he cannot quite understand life, because he will not accept its contradictions.

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