the gall even from expressions that were esteemed as the sarcasm of Ben Jonson's surly ingratitude or envy.

66

The subject of Shakespeare's dramatic and poetical character is so vast that it would be idle here to attempt its analysis. The variety of its attributes has, as might have been expected, drawn both censure and applause from different tastes and ages. Voltaire could see in Hamlet only the work of a "drunken savage." The mechanical pedantry of Rymer sees in Othello only "a bloody farce:" "a tragedy of a pocket handkerchief." We shall quote the celebrated passage of Dryden, eulogised by Johnson as a perpetual model of encomiastic criticism; exact without minuteness, and lofty without exaggeration.”—“He (Shakespeare) was the man, who of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously but luckily. When he describes anything you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning give him the greater commendation; he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards and found her there. I cannot say he is everywhere alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat and insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clinches, his serious into bombast. But he is always great, when some great occasion is presented to him; no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets

Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi."

This "epitome of excellence," as Johnson terms the above criticism, must constitute our sole tribute to Shakespeare's merits. The voluminous admiration of more modern times does not contain a very great deal more than is compressed into the vigour of Dryden's summary. We would simply invite attention to the higher views of the philosophy of Shakespeare's works suggested by Schlegel and Coleridge. Great attention has been paid to the text of his dramas by his recent editors, Knight, Collier, Dyce, Singer, and Halliwell.

FROM THE MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

Act II. Scene 1.

OBERON'S VISION.

Ob. My gentle Puck, come hither: thou remember'st
Since once I sat upon a promontory,

And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song,

And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's music.

Puck. I remember.

Ob. That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,

Cupid all-armed: a certain aim he took

At a fair vestal thronéd by the west,

FROM MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
And the imperial votaress passed on,

In maiden meditation, fancy-free.

Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell;

It fell upon a little western flower,1

Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it Love-in-idleness.

Fetch me that flower; the herb I show'd thee once;
The juice of it, on sleeping eyelids laid,
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again,
Ere the Leviathan can swim a league.

Puck. I'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.

FROM MEASURE FOR MEASURE

Act III. Scene 1.

THE DUKE TO CLAUDIO.

[Exit.

Reason thus with life :-

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

That none but fools would keep; a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skiey influences

That do this habitation, where thou keep'st,
Hourly afflict: merely thou art death's fool;2
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,

And yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble ;
For all the accommodations that thou bear'st

Are nursed by baseness, thou'rt by no means valiant;
For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork

Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,

And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou'rt not thyself;
For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains,
That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;

89

1 This celebrated vision is elaborately interpreted by Warburton; the "fair vestal" being, of course, Elizabeth; the Mermaid, Mary Queen of Scots; the Dolphin, the French Dauphin, to whom she was married; the shot stars, the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, who fell in her quarrel. It is probable, however, that the poet aimed at no more than paying a compliment to Elizabeth, who could not fail to be gratified with so exquisite a tribute.

2 An allusion to the shows of the early stage, in which the "Fool" was represented as avoiding "Death" or "Fate," by stratagems which brought him "more immediately into the jaws of it." In a similar allusion Hamlet calls his uncle a Vice of Kings. Act III. Sc. 4.

Johnson censures Shakespeare for this representation of death, especially from the lips of a Friar (the Duke is so disguised), to a man on the eve of execution.-Compare this passage with Hamlet's Soliloquy on Death, Act III. Sc. 1.

For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get;
And what thou hast forgett'st. Thou art not certain;
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor;
For, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee.

Thou hast nor youth, nor age;

But as it were an after-dinner sleep,
Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms

Of palsied Eld; and when thou'rt old and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this,
That bears the name of life? Yet in this life

Lie hid more thousand deaths; yet death we fear,
That makes these odds all even.

FROM THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.
Act IV. Scene 1.

MERCY.- Portia to Shylock.

The quality of Mercy is not strain'd;
It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice bless'd;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,-
It is enthronéd in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,-
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.

Act v. Scene I.

MUSIC.

Lor. How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music

1 This is exquisitely imagined. Johnson.

FROM THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.

Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Sit, Jessica. Look, how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines1 of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,2

Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubims,—
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
Come, ho, and wake Diana3 with a hymn!
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with music.

Jes. I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
Lor. The reason is, your spirits are attentive:
For do but note a wild and wanton herd,
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,

Fetching mad bounds, bellowing, and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood;

If they perchance but hear a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,

You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze,

By the sweet power of music. Therefore, the poet

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[Music.

Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;
Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change its nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted.-Mark the music.

Enter Portia and Nerissa at a distance.

Por. That light we see is burning in my hall;
-How far that little candle throws his beams!

So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

Ner. When the moon shone we did not see the candle.

Por. So doth the greater glory dim the less:

A substitute shines brightly as a king,
Until a king be by; and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
Into the main of waters.-Music! hark!

Ner. It is your music, madam, of the house.

"A patine is the small flat plate used as a cover to the chalice, during the administration of the papal sacrament. heaven star-paved." Lat. patida. Compare Milton, "the road of

2 Allusion to the Pythagorean astronomy. Compare Job xxxviii. 7.

3 The moon.

Por. Nothing is good, I see, without respect :1
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.

Ner. Silence bestows the virtue on it, madam.
Por. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended; and, I think,
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.

How many things by season season'd are
To their right praise, and true perfection!

FROM AS YOU LIKE IT.

Act II. Scene 1.

THE EXILED DUKE'S PHILOSOPHY.

Now, my co-mates, and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons' difference; as the icy fang,
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even 'till I shrink with cold, I smile, and say,
This is no flattery; these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.
Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head."

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

Act II. Scene 7.

JAQUEZ DESCRIBES THE CLOWN TOUCHSTONE.

A fool, a fool!I met a fool i'the forest, A motley fool-a miserable world!—

As I do live by food, I met a fool;

Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun,
And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms-

In good set terms-and yet a motley fool.

"Good morrow, fool," quoth I-" No, Sir," quoth he, "Call me not fool, till heaven have sent me fortune:"

1 Unless considered relatively.

2 So Shakespeare coins co-mart, Ham. Act I. Sc. I.
3 A common belief of Shakespeare's age.