Labour is light, where love (quoth I) doth pay; (Saith he) Light burthens heavy, if far borne: (Quoth I) The maine lost, cast the by away; Y' have spun a faire thred, he replies in scorne. And having thus awhile each other thwarted, Fooles as we met, so fooles again we parted.

TO HIMSELFE AND THE HARPE.

AND why not I, as hee
That's greatest, if as free,
(In sundry strains that strive,
Since there so many be)

Th' old Lyrick kind revive?

I will, yea, and I may ;
Who shall oppose my way?
For what is he alone,
That of himselfe can say,

Hee's heire of Helicon?

Apollo, and the Nine,

Forbid no man their shrine,

That commeth with hands pure;

Else they be so divine,

They will him not indure.

For they be such coy things,
That they care not for kings,
And dare let them know it;
Nor may he touch their springs,
That is not borne a Poet.

The Phocean it did prove,
Whom when foule lust did move,

Those mayds unchaste to make,

Fell, as with them he strove,

His neck, and justly, brake.

That instrument ne'r heard,
Strooke by the skilfull bard,
It strongly to awake;
But it th' infernalls skar'd,

And made Olympus quake.

As those prophetike strings
Whose sounds with fiery wings

Drave fiends from their abode,
Touch'd by the best of kings,
That sang the holy ode:

So his, which women slue,
And it int' Hebrus threw,

Such sounds yet forth it sent,
The bankes to weepe that drue,
As downe the streame it went.

That by the tortoyse-shell,
To Maya's sonne it fell,

The most thereof no doubt,
But sure some power did dwell
In him who found it out.

The wildest of the field,
The ayre, with rivers t' yeeld,

Which mov'd; that sturdy glebes,

And massie oakes could weeld

To rayse the pyles of Thebes.

And diversly though strung,
So anciently we sung

To it, that now scarce knowne,

If first it did belong

To Greece or if our owne.

The Druydes imbrew'd
With gore, on altars rude

With sacrifices crown'd
In hollow woods bedew'd,

Ador'd the trembling sound.

Though we be all to seeke
Of Pindar that great Greeke,
To finger it aright,

The soule with power to strike,
His hand retain'd such might.

Or him that Rome did grace,
Whose ayres we all imbrace,

That scarcely found his peere,
Nor giveth Phoebus place

For strokes divinely cleere.

The Irish I admire,

And still cleave to that lyre,
As our musike's mother,
And thinke, till I expire,
Apollo's such another.

As Britons, that so long
Have held this antike song,
And let all our carpers
Forbeare their fame to wrong,
Th' are right skilfull harpers.

Southerne, I long thee spare,
Yet wish thee well to fare,

Who me so pleased'st greatly,
As first, therefore more rare,
Handling thy harpe neatly.

To those that with despight
Shall terme these numbers slight,
Tell them their judgment's blind,
Much erring from the right,

It is a noble kind.

Nor is't the verse doth make,
That giveth or doth take,
'Tis possible to clyme,
To kindle, or to slake,

Although in Skelton's ryme.

AN ODE WRITTEN IN THE PEAKE,

THIS while we are abroad,

Shall we not touch our lyre?
Shall we not sing an Ode?
Shall that holy fire,

In us that strongly glow'd,
In this cold ayre expire?

Long since the summer layd

Her lustie brav'ry downe, The autumne halfe is way'd,

And Boreas 'gins to frowne, Since now I did behold

Great Brute's first builded towne.

Though in the utmost Peake
A while we doe remaine,
Amongst the mountaines bleake
Expos'd to sleet and raine,
No sport our houres shall breake
To exercise our vaine.

What though bright Phœbus' beames
Refresh the southerne ground,
And though the princely Thames
With beauteous nymphs abound,
And by old Camber's streames
Be many wonders found;

Yet many rivers cleare

Here glide in silver swathes, And what of all most deare, Buckston's delicious bathes, Strong ale and noble cheare, T'asswage breeme winter's scathes.

Those grim and horrid caves,
Whose lookes affright the day,

Wherein nice Nature saves

What she would not bewray,

Our better leisure craves,
And doth invite our lay.

In places farre or neare,
Or famous, or obscure,
Where wholesome is the ayre,
Or where the most impure,
All times, and every-where,
The muse is still in ure.

own.

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, the son of a woolstapler, in Stratford-on-Avon, was born in that town on the 23d of April, 1564. In 1582, he married Anne Hathaway. In 1586, he left his home, his wife, and the three children she had borne him, and started alone for London. Until 1591 he passed the life of a player in the theatre at Blackfriars. About this time he began to write, but modestly occupied himself for two years in altering the plays of others. It was not until 1593 that he circulated his Thenceforward, through the space of twenty years, he realized the most wonderful destiny as a writer that has yet fallen to any of the sons of men. During half that period he continued a player. In 1603, having accomplished the purchase of a tolerably large share in the Globe theatre, he left the stage. In 1613, he disposed of his property, and retired to Stratford. He died on his fifty-second birth-day-on the 23d of April, 1616-ending life, as he began it, with the soft flowings of his native Avon murmuring near him. Such is the sum of our absolute knowledge of the public history of Shakspeare, for his genius was only rivalled by that wonderful modesty which kept him, through all the changes of his life, an unassuming and unobtrusive man. Unable as we are, however, to follow him through his great public career, we can pursue him into the solitude of his heart and home.

His sonnets are altogether personal. A portion of those we have arranged illustrate, the reader will at once see, two passages in the life of Shakspeare, one of friendship and the other of love, and the story they tell is a strange one. It is only necessary here to make this reference to it. Of their characteristics, as poems, it is impossible to speak too highly. In the profoundest thought, the truest refinement, and the most exquisite feeling of natural loveliness, they have never been excelled. Moving through the two main springs of existence, Love and Sorrow, "Comfort and Despair;" to the one they add glory, and the other they redeem by beauty. Their versification is sweet and flowing.

The rest of the sonnets we have quoted will be found to illustrate as many various characteristics in the life and personal thoughts of this greatest of writers, all of them inexpressibly interesting and touching, and all of them dashed with pathos the sweetest and most profound. It is unnecessary to request the reader to study them with this view. He will see with what a jealous self-watchfulness Shakspeare distrusted even his high gifts, with what a noble modesty he expresses his own defects, and how affectingly he alludes to his profession of a player, as one that had hurt his mind. His feelings on the question of fame possess deep interest. Struggling against the poverty and reproach of the present, he does not appear to have thought it worth his while to obtain for himself a more secure reversion in the future. He is conscious of his power, but careless of the personal glory it might associate with his name. Knowing himself the creator of immortal things, he does not care to survive along with them. In his moments of greatest despondency, to be the idol of posterity never struck him as a recompense for the slander of the living. Wooing love and the fortunes of the world unsuccessfully, he never rewarded his failure by taking immortality as a secret bride. The reason of this we believe to have been the extreme universality of his genius. No after personal consideration of any sort would mix itself with what belonged only to the great heart of the WORLD.

Shakspeare died, as we have seen, when his life was what is usually considered a little past the prime. Thought, however, would seem to have done the work of years. He talks of his days as "past the best" a considerable time before he died; of his face as shown him in his glass, "bated and chopp'd by tann'd antiquity;" and of hours having "drained his blood and fill'd his brow with lines and wrinkles." The stanza which anticipates a "confin'd doom" will also be noticed, and that profoundly pathetic cry for restful death, which seems to us to fix the paternity of Hamlet. Of his general personal appearance we have no authentic account; but this may be gathered, perhaps, from some of these quotations. It is clear, we think, that he was afflicted with lameness, or at least a weakness in the legs. In proof of this we equally rely on the sonnets in which the circumstance itself is alluded to, as in those which so plainly intimate his frequent habit of riding on horseback. In connexion with the latter another anecdote will be observed, somewhat startling at first, but redeemed by a pretty touch of tenderness.