Coole Violets, and Orpine growing still, Dull Poppy, and drink-quickning Setuale, And what so else of vertue good or ill Grewe in this gardin, fetcht from farre away, And on their pleasures greedily doth pray, What more felicitie can fall to creature Than to enjoy delight with libertie, To raigne in the air from the earth to highest skie, But what on earth can long abide in state? About us daylie, to worke our decay; And whatso heavens in their secret doome 4 (1) Perseline-parsley. (2) Embay-bathe, delight. (3) Ioyaunce-the (4) Fore word must be pronounced here io-y-aunce for the sake of the metre. cast-foresee, provide against. And the armies of their creatures all and some THOU stranger! which for Rome in Rome here seekest, Thou that at Rome astonisht doth behold 4 Renewes herselfe with buildings rich and gay, (2) Flit-to fly away (1) From the poem of this name, stanzas 4, 27-29. rapidly. (3) These ample ruines vew the sight of these ample ruins. (4) One would judge, &c.-i. e. one would imagine that the genius or spirit of Rome were striving to reanimate the mouldering body. mouldering. (5) Pouldred-powdered, He that hath seene a great oke drie and dead, And manie yong plants spring out of her rinde :- All that which Egypt whilome3 did devise, Was wont this auncient citie to adorne, And the heaven itselfe with her wide wonders fill: Was here to see. O mervelous great change! (1) Owe her fall-i.e. her fall is, as it were, due-she is doomed to fall by the first wind. (2) Much more-i. e. than the oak does amongst trees. (3) Whilome -formerly. "In the antiquated word whilom, at times, we have a remnant of the old dative in m. The sense of the word is adverbial; its form, however, is that of a dative case."-Latham. (4) Embrave-make brave or fine, adorn. tique-skilful, cunning. (6) Wit-ingenuity or genius. value. (5) Prac(7) Prise-praise, SHAKSPERE. PRINCIPAL EVENTS OF HIS LIFE.-William Shakspere-called by Coleridge the "myriad-minded man"-was born in 1564, at Stratford-upon-Avon, in Warwickshire. So scanty is our information respecting the events of his life, that we may without much exaggeration, say in the language of one of his critics: "All that is known with any degree of certainty concerning Shakspere is, that he was born at Stratford-upon-Avon; married and had children there; went to London, where he commenced actor, and wrote poems and plays; returned to Stratford, made his will, died, and was buried." The few additional items which modern research has furnished, give little further aid in illustrating Shakspere's character, either as a man or a poet.2 The important events of his life were, in truth, the publications from time to time of those famous works with which his name has become inseparably connected. These, however, rather exhibit to us the universal range and capabilities, than the characteristic features of his mind, so that our attention is confined rather to what he did, than what he was; as we enjoy the genial light of the sun by feeling its reflection from objects around us, rather than by gazing at the luminary itself. He died in 1616, eight years after the birth of Milton. Shakspere's was an era of distinguished men-the age of Spenser, Sidney, Raleigh, Ben Jonson, and Beaumont and Fletcher in England; of Tasso in Italy, of Cervantes in Spain, and of Camoens in Portugal. PRINCIPAL WORKS.-Shakspere wrote a few miscellaneous poems and many dramatical works, of which the "Midsummer Night's Dream," "Romeo and Juliet," the "Merchant of Venice," Lear," ," "Timon of Athens," "Othello," the "Tempest," "Macbeth," and "Hamlet," are the most admired. CHARACTERISTIC SPIRIT AND STYLE.-"He [Shakspere] 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 (1) Steevens. (2) How much," says Mr. Hallam ("Edinburgh Review," 1808), "has been written upon Shakespeare and Shakespere---what long pedigrees of the Halls, Harts, and Hathaways-while the reader, amidst the profusion of learning, searches in vain for a vestige of the manners and opinions of him, in whom alone he is interested! Pars minima est ipse poeta sui." 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 clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great when 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.""'1 "Criticism goes back for names worthy of being put into competition with his, to the first great masters of dramatic invention; and even in the points of dissimilarity between them and him, discovers some of the highest indications of his genius. Compared with the classical composers of antiquity, he is to our conceptions nearer the character of a universal poet; more acquainted with man in the real world, and more terrific and bewitching in the præternatural. He expanded the magic circle of the drama beyond the limits that belonged to it in antiquity; made it embrace more time and locality; filled it with larger business and action, with vicissitudes of gay and serious emotion which classical taste had kept divided; with characters which developed humanity in stronger lights and subtler movements; and with a language more wildly, more playfully diversified by fancy and passion, than was ever spoken on any stage. Like nature herself, he presents alternations of the gay and the tragic; and his mutability, like the suspense and precariousness of real existence, often deepens the force of our impression.' "When Aristotle defined it to be the province of Tragedy to move pity and terror, he did not intend that the excitement of these emotions was its ultimate use. These are the instruments it employs to impress its moral. It woos and urges thus our attention and sympathy. Where then, can such a Tragic Bard be found as this? Where can we trace the same power to soften and to alarm the heart? Where are the same strokes of pathos and images of horror? Never was simplicity more sweet, never was pomp more magnificent. Beauty unfolds before us modest as (1) Dryden. "Essay of Dramatic Poesy." (2) Campbell. "Specimens," &c., Introduction, p. lxi. |