the intermixture of weightier matter. The metre is wanting in pliancy and sinew; but the occasional sententious lines, the play upon words, the style and quality of the comedy, with its jokes dovetailed and full of retorts, all point him out as the author. It is a slight play compared with many others of later date; but there is a passion and freshness in it, as though it had been breathed forth in that time of year when April

'Had put a spirit of youth in everything.'

Perhaps 'LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST' was played next. It is a decided advance in power, in style, and even in dramatic skill. With the exception of Launce (in whom the germ of much that afterwards blossomed out is obvious), and, perhaps, of Julia, there is little of character in the Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.' But Biron and Rosaline, Boyet, Armado and his page, Moth (that handful of wit'), Holofernes, and Costard, are all clear outlines, although all of them may not be very strong. And some of the poetry in this play is, as mere poetry, equal to that of Shakspere's maturer time. The aphorism

'A jest's prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it,'

is profound and Shaksperian. The play itself looks as though it rested on some event in the history of Provence, in times when the Troubadours figured in the solemn masquerades of Love. The two principal characters, Biron and Rosaline, were afterwards recast by Shakspere, with some alterations, and appear under the names of Benedick and Beatrice.

In what order the rest of the plays followed, at what period the greatest dramas were produced, and what was the final work of this unequalled poet, I will not pretend to guess. As a general principle, however, I would say, that the plays in which signs of imitation (particularly imitation of style) are manifest, should be accounted the earliest; and that those wherein the poetry is redundant and far exceeds the necessities and purposes of the story, should be held to have preceded, in point of time, the great and substantial dramas, in which the business of the play is skilfully wrought out, and where the poetry springs out of the passion or humor of the characters, and serves to illustrate and not to oppress them. In conformity with this view, I think that the WINTER'S TALE,' although perhaps not actually performed until the year 1611, can never have been the last work of Shakspere. It is far more like the labor of his youth. That the 'TEMPEST' should have been the last play is far less unlikely; and I would fain connect it, if possible, with his farewell to the stage, were it only for those beautiful and melancholy words of Prospero, with which he (another enchanter) abandons his 'so potent art: '

'This rough magic

I here abjure; and, when I have required
Some heavenly music (which even now I do),
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And, deeper than did ever plummet sound,
I'll drown my book.'

PART II.

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WHATEVER doubts may exist concerning the parentage or education of Shakspere ;- concerning his residence, his mode of life, his progress from poverty to wealth; or concerning the order of his dramas, showing thereby his ascension from the immaturity of boyhood, to that full perfection of mind which he afterwards attained; there can be none as to the quality of his intellect, nor, in my opinion, as to the vast benefits which he conferred upon the world.

Poetry, the material in which Shakspere dealt, has been treated often as a superfluity as a thing unimportant to mankind, and as a luxury against which sumptuary laws might be fairly levelled. This is the opinion of men of literal understanding, who, seeing no merit in poetry because it differs from science, and overlooking its logic, which is involved instead of being demonstrated, pronounce at once against it. It is more especially an opinion of the present age; an age in which the material world has been searched and ransacked to supply new powers and luxuries to man ; and in which the moral world has been too much neglected.

We do not encourage the poet; but we encourage the chemist and the miner, the capitalist, the manufacturer. We encourage voyagers, who penetrate the forests of Mexico, the South Indian pampas, and the sterile tracts of Africa beyond the mountains of the moon. These people tell us of new objects of commerce; they bring us tidings of unknown lands. Yet, what a vast unexplored world lies about us! what a dominion, beyond the reach of any traveller-beyond the strength of the steam-engine-nay, even beyond the power of material light itself to penetrate — is there to be attained in that region of the brain! Much have the poets won, from time to time, out of that deep obscure. Homer has bequeathed to us his discoveries, and Dante also, and our greater Shakspere. They are the same now, as valuable now, as on the day whereon they were made. In our earth, all is for ever changing. One traveller visits a near or a distant country; he sees traces (temples or monuments) of human power; but unforeseen events, earthquake or tempest, obliterate them; or the people who dwelt near them migrate ; the eternal forest grows round and hides them; or they are left to perish, for the sake of a new artist, whose labors are effaced in their turn. And so goes on the continual change, the continual decay. Governments and systems change; codes of law, theories philosophical, arts in war, demonstrations in physics. Everything perishes except Truth, and the worship of Truth, and Poetry which is its enduring language.

And now, when I am about to speak of some of the great qualities of Shakspere, I do not propose to be very critical. It is better to approach him with, as I think

Mr. Coleridge has suggested, an 'affectionate reverence.' It is safer to err on the side of too much respect. I am unwilling to discuss, at length, his (so called) want of utility, or his morality, or his historical, geographical, or verbal errors; some of which last may be ascribed to the age he lived in, whilst others may be safely placed to the account of interpolators or transcribers of his plays. Besides, our poet deals with subjects so many and so various, and he is of so high an intellect, that I dare not venture to speak of him as of any other writer. He has been denounced lately, I hear, as an offender against letters; stripped and hacked and scarified, to satisfy the bad humor of some very unenviable person. I have forborne to read this libel against the greatest man that the world has produced, being already sufficiently acquainted with the freedom of preceding critics.

The flattery or good-nature of these writers (now an important body) has done but little harm. No book can live and take its permanent place, unless it has in itself the seeds of vitality. But the injury which literature suffers from dishonest, malignant criticism, is very great. It is true that a commanding genius is not to be repressed by malevolence or envy and it is true, perhaps, that merit of every order will make its way in the end, and secure its due reputation. But, in the meantime, we, the cotemporaries, are defrauded of the fruits gathered in for us; and the laborer is cheated of his hire. Readers of books are for the most part an indolent race. They prefer taking the opinions of the present or last generation, to searching for those which are a century old. In fact, men associate