“Why,” said la Beale Isoud,…. “ye may not be called a
good knight, but if ye make a quarrel for a lady.”
Morte Darthur, x, lvi.
It has long been the fashion, when Cymbeline has been under discussion, to cite Dr. Johnson's famous criticism, and indeed one feels a whimsical joy in setting down so delightful a bit of square-toed dogmatism. “This play has many just sentiments, some natural dialogues, and some pleasing scenes, but they are obtained at the expense of much incongruity. To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the conduct, the confusion of the names and manners of different times, and the impossibility of the events in any system of life, were to waste criticism upon unresisting imbecility, upon faults too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation.” The really significant thing, however, which makes this opinion worth repeating, is that so many of the best modern critics have expressed substantial agreement with it. Sir Walter Raleigh thinks that “Johnson speaks truly and moderately,” and Dr. H. H. Furness said, “Ay, Dr. Johnson was right in his estimate of this play of Cymbeline,—the sweetest, tenderest, profoundest of almost all the immortal galaxy.” Most writers, while not agreeing directly with Johnson, have taken a half-puzzled, half-apologetic attitude; they have obviously felt what Dr. Furness calls “deterioration” here, after the splendid achievement of the great tragedies and the Roman plays.