"Measure for Measure," presumes a little too far on his right to improbability, and, to use a vulgar phrase, "draws a long bow." The tragedy of "Othello" (1604) has evident marks of its plot and incidents having been largely borrowed from the seventh novel of the third decade of Cinthio's Hecatommithi. This drama, by itself, would have immortalized any poet; then what are we to think of Shakspeare, when we may hesitate to pronounce it to be the best of his plays! Certainly, however, it has no superior in his own theatre, and no rival in any other. The Moor is at once one of the most complex and astonishing, and yet most intelligible pictures, that fiction ever portrayed of human character. His grandeur of soul is natural, and we admire it; his gentleness is equally natural, and we love him for it; his appearance we cannot but conceive to be majestic, and his physiognomy benevolent. Othello had been bred a barbarian, and though his bland nature and intercourse with the more civilized world had long warred against and conquered the half-natural habits of barbarism, yet those habits, at last, broke out, and prevailed in the moments of his jealousy. He is not a jealous man by nature, but, being once made jealous, he reverts to savageness, and becomes as terrible as he had before been tender. This contrast in his conduct, however, is not an Ovidian metamorphosis, but a transition so probably managed as to seem unavoidable; yet, the naturalness of the change prevents neither our terror nor pity on the contrary, the sweetness of his character before its fall is the smoothness of the stream before its cataract; and his bland dispositions, heretofore displayed, appear, like a rich autumnal day, contrasted with the thunder-storm of its evening. The terrors of the storm are also made more striking to our imagination by the gentleness of the victim on which they fallDesdemona. Had one symptom of an angry spirit appeared in that lovely martyr, our sympathy with her would have been endangered; but Shakspeare knew better. tural or made the substances of truth more awful by their superstitious shadows-than has the tragedy of Macbeth." The progress of Macbeth in crime is an unparalleled lecture in ethical anatomy. The heart of man, naturally prone to goodness, is exposed so as to teach us clearly through what avenues of that heart the black drop of guilt found its way to expel the more innocent blood. A semblance of superstitious necessity is no doubt preserved in the actions of Macbeth; and a superficial reader might say that the witches not only tempted, but necessitated Macbeth to murder Duncan. But this is not the case, for Shakspeare has contrived to give at once the awful appearance of preternatural impulse on Macbeth's mind, and yet visibly to leave him a free agent, and a voluntary sinner. "Julius Cæsar" was written in 1607. Three out of four of Shakspeare's classical dramas, "Julius Cæsar," Antony and Cleopatra," and "Coriolanus," are so consummate, that he must be pronounced as much at home in Roman as in romantic history. Already he had shown, in his allusions to Pagan mythology, that he had inhaled its sweetest aroma, distilled, not by toiling scholarship, but by the fire of his genius. But, now that he was in the fullest manhood of his mind, he could borrow more from the ancients than the bloom and breath of their mythology. He cast his eyes both in their quiet and in their kindled inspiration, both as a philosopher and as a poet, on the page of classic history; he discriminated its characters with the light of philosophy; and he irradiated truth without encroaching on its solid shapes with the hues of fancy. "Timon of Athens" is referred to 1610. It is far from displaying Shakspeare improved either in his philosophy or his philanthropy at the time he wrote it. It is the production of his spleen more than of his heart. The interwoven episode of Alcibiades is uninteresting, for it is a moot point whether he or the Athenians were in the wrong. Altogether "Timon" is a pillar in his theatric fame that might be removed without endanger "King Lear" (1605) was based upon a playing the edifice. entitled "The True Chronicle Historie of King Leare and his Three Daughters," by an unknown author. Independently of Shakspeare's having created a new Lear, he has sublimated the old tragedy into a new one, by an entire orignality in the spiritual protraiture of its personages. ever Shakspeare works on old materials, you will find him not wiping dusted gold, but extracting gold from dust where none but himself could have made the golden extraction. Wher "Cymbeline" is dated in 1609. In order to enjoy the romantic drama, we must accept of the terms on which the romantic poet offers us enjoyment. The outline of his piece in such a poem as "Cymbeline" will at once show that the scene is placed remotely as to time, in order to soften its improbabilities to the imagination by the effect of distance. We all know that in landscapes and landscape-painting the undefined appearance of objects resulting from distance has a charm different from that of their distinctness in the foreground; and the same principle holds true in the romantic drama, when the poet avowedly leaves his scenes open to the objection of improbability, owing to the very nature of romantic fiction. Of all plays in the world, I think these remarks are particularly applicable to Shakspeare's "Cymbeline." With my heart open to romantic belief, I conscientiously suppose all the boldly imfully amalgamated the natural and the superna- agined events of the drama-I am rewarded with Enlightened criticism and universal opinion have so completely set the seal of celebrity on the tragedy of Macbeth," (1606,) that it will stand whilst our language exists, as a monument of English genius. Nay, it will outlast the present form of our language, and speak to generations unborn in parts of the earth that are yet uninhabited. No drama in any national theatre, taking even that of Greece into the account, has more wonder I exaggerate not, in saying that Shakspeare has nowhere breathed more pleasurable feelings over the mind, as an antidote to tragic pain, than in " Cymbeline." If I were to select any historical play of Shakspeare, in which he has combined an almost literal fidelity to history with an equally faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and in which he superinduces the merit of skilful dramatic management, it would be " Antony and Cleopatra," (1608.) In his portraiture of Antony there is, perhaps, a flattered likeness of the original by Plutarch; but the similitude loses little of its strength by Shakspeare's softening and keeping in the shade his traits of cruelty. In Cleopatra, we can discern nothing materially different from the vouched historical sorceress; she nevertheless has a more vivid meteoric and versatile play of enchantment in Shakspeare's likeness of her, than in a dozen of other poetical copies in which the artists took much greater liberties with historical truth: he paints her as if the gipsy herself had cast her spell over him, and given her own witchcraft to his pencil. "Coriolanus" was written in 1610; "Winter's Tale" in 1611; and "The Tempest"-believed to be the last of Shakspeare's plays-in the same year. This drama is comparatively a grave counterpart to "A Midsummer Night's Dream." say comparatively, for its gayety is only less abandoned and frolicsome. To be condemned to give the preference to either would give me a distress similar to that of being obliged to choose between the loss of two very dear friends. 66 The Tempest," however, has a sort of sacredness, as the last work of the mighty workman. Shakspeare, as if conscious that it would be his last, and, as if inspired to typify himself, has made its hero a natural, a dignified, and benevolent magician, who could conjure up spirits from the vasty deep, and command supernatural agency by the most seemingly natural and simple means.-And this final play of our poet has magic indeed; for what can be simpler in language than the courtship of Ferdinand and Miranda, and yet what can be more magical than the sympathy with which it subdues us? Here Shakspeare himself is Prospero, or rather the superior genius who commands both Prospero and Ariel. But the time was approaching when the potent sorcerer was to break his staff, and to bury it fathoms in the oceanDeeper than did ever plummet sound. That staff has never been, and never will be, recovered. The exact period at which Shakspeare quitted the metropolis, and settled in his native place, has not been ascertained, but as it was certainly some years before his death, it cannot be well put later than 1611 or 1612. His fame, his engaging manners, and his easy fortune-for he retired with an income of three hundred pounds a-year-equal to fifteen hundred pounds in the present daymust have made him associate with the best society in and around Stratford; and we cannot conceive his settlement to have been less than a joyous era to his townsmen and neighbourhood. His wife had brought him three children: Susanna, who was born in May, 1583; about eighteen months afterwards, she was delivered of twins, a son and daughter, who were baptized by the names Hamnet and Judith. In the year 1596, he lost his only son, who died at the age of twelve. Susanna was married, June 5, 1607, to Dr. John Hall, a respectable physician; and in 1615-16 his youngest daughter Judith, then in her thirty-first year, was married to Thomas Quiney, a vintner, in Stratford. On the 25th of the succeeding month he executed his will, as if warned of impending fate, for, on the 23d of April, 1616, on his birthday, and when he had exactly completed his fifty-second year, the best of poets expired.-G.] SONNETS. WHEN forty winters shall besiege thy brow, OH! how much more doth Beauty beauteous seem, By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! But, for their virtue only is their show, LET me not to the marriage of true minds That looks on tempests and is never shaken; Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks As a decrepit father takes delight I make my love engrafted to this store: give, That I in thy abundance am sufficed, And by a part of all thy glory live. Look what is best, that best I wish in thee; This wish I have; then ten times happy me! THOSE lips, that Love's own hand did make, WHEN in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, No longer mourn for me when I am dead, SAY that thou didst forsake me for some fault, LET me confess that we two must be twain, As thou being mine, mine is thy good report. ALAS, 'tis true, I have gone here and there, SIR WALTER RALEIGH. [Born, 1552. Died, 1618.] Ir is difficult exactly to estimate the poetical | character of this great man, as many of the pieces that are ascribed to him have not been authenticated. Among these is the "Soul's Farewell," which possesses a fire of imagination that we would willingly ascribe to him; but his claim to it, as has been already mentioned, is exceedingly doubtful. The tradition of his having written it on the night before his execution, is highly interesting to the fancy, but, like many fine stories, it has the little defect of being untrue, as the poem was in existence more than twenty years before his death. It has accordingly been placed in this collection, with several other pieces to which his name has been conjecturally affixed, among the anonymous poetry of that period. Sir Walter was born at Hayes Farm, in Devonshire, and studied at Oxford. Leaving the university at seventeen, he fought for six years under the Protestant banners in France, and afterwards served a campaign in the Netherlands. He next distinguished himself in Ireland during the rebellion of 1580, under the lord deputy Lord Grey de Wilton, with whom his personal disputes eventually promoted his fortunes; for being heard in his own cause on returning to England, he won the favour of Elizabeth, who knighted him, and raised him to such honours as alarmed the jealousy of her favourite Leicester. In the mean time, as early as 1579, he had commenced his adventures with a view to colonize America-surveyed the territory now called Virginia, in 1584, and fitted out successive fleets in support of the infant colony. In the destruction of the Spanish armada, as well as in the expedition to Portugal in behalf of Don Antonio, he had his full share of action and glory; and though recalled, in 1592, from the appointment of general of the expedition against Panama, he must have made a princely fortune by the success of his fleet, which sailed upon that occasion, and returned with the richest prize that had ever been brought to England. The queen was about this period so indignant with him for an amour which he had with one of her maids of honour, that, though he married the lady, (she was the daughter of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton,) her majesty committed THE SILENT LOVER. PASSIONS are liken'd best to floods and streams, Wrong not, sweet mistress of my heart, With thinking that he feels no smart him, with his fair partner, to the Tower. The queen forgave him, however, at last, and rewarded his services with a grant of the manor of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, where he built a magnificent seat. Raleigh's mind was not one that was destined to travel in the wheel-ruts of common prejudice. It was rumoured that he had carried the freedom of his philosophical speculation to an heretical height on many subjects; and his acceptance of the church lands of Sherborne, already mentioned, probably supplied additional motives to the clergy to swell the outcry against his principles. He was accused (by the jesuits) of atheism-a charge which his own writings sufficiently refute. Whatever were his opinions, the public saved him the trouble of explaining them; and the queen, taking it for granted that they must be bad, gave him an open, and, no doubt, edifying reprimand. To console himself under these circumstances, he projected the conquest of Guiana, sailed thither in 1595, and having captured the city of San Joseph, returned and published an account of his voyage. In the following year he acted gallantly under the Earl of Essex at Cadiz, as well as in what was called the "Island Voyage."* On the latter occasion he failed of complete success only through the jealousy of the favourite. His letter to Cecil, in which he exhorted that statesman to the destruction of Essex, forms but too sad and notorious a blot in our hero's memory; yet even that offence will not reconcile us to behold the successor of Elizabeth robbing Raleigh of his estate to bestow it on the minion Carr; and on the grounds of a plot in which his participation was never proved, condemning to fifteen years of imprisonment the man who had enlarged the empire of his country, and the boundaries of human knowledge. James could estimate the wise, but shrunk from cordiality with the brave. He released Raleigh, from avaricious hopes about the mine of Guiana; and when disappointed in that object, sacrificed him to motives still baser than avarice. On the 29th of October, 1618, Raleigh perished on a scaffold, in Old Palace-yard, by a sentence originally iniquitous, and which his commission to Guiana had virtually revoked. Since if my plaints were not t' approve For not knowing that I sue to serve As all desire, but none deserve A place in her affection, A voyage that was aimed principally at the Spanish Plate fleets. I rather choose to want relief Than venture the revealing; Silence in love betrays more woe Then wrong not, dearest to my heart, He smarteth most who hides his smart, And sues for no compassion.* A NYMPH'S DISDAIN OF LOVE. And so think I, with a down down derry. When women knew no woe, Unborn was false Suspect; From wanton toys and fond affect Hey down a down, did Dian sing, &c. At length men used charms, Thus women welcomed woe, Hey down a down, did Dian sing, THE SHEPHERD'S DESCRIPTION OF LOVE. Ascribed to Sir Walter Raleigh in "England's Helicon." Melib. SHEPHERD, what's love? I pray thee tell. Faust. It is that fountain and that well Where pleasure and repentance dwell; M. Yet, what is love? I prithee say. It is December match'd with May, [This poem is attributed to Lord Pembroke,-but it has been ascribed with great probability to Sir Robert Ayton in a MS. and contemporary volume of Ayton's poems once in Mr. Heber's hands.-C.] M. Yet, what is love? good shepherd, sain. F. It is a sunshine mixt with rain; It is a toothache, or like pain; It is a game where none doth gain; M. Yet, shepherd, what is love, I pray? A pretty kind of sporting fray, Then nymphs take vantage while you may, M. And what is love, good shepherd, show? A prize that passeth to and fro; |