at the subject in what light we may, from the view of religion or the view of common sense, we must still admit that we cannot balk or elude those eternal laws of the universe, which deny lasting power to the energies of robbery and the schemes of rapine. The laws of God, in their slow, silent, and terrible operation, will still move tranquilly on, turning all our glory to shame, all our strength to weakness; though we, in the mad exultation of our guilt, turn night into day with our bonfires, and rend the skies with our huzzas.

SHAKSPEARE'S CRITICS.*

THOSE Who consider the science of criticism as nothing more than a collection of arbitrary rules, and the art of criticism but their dextrous or declamatory application, rejoice in a system of admirable simplicity and barren results. It has the advantage of judging everything and accounting for nothing, thus gratifying the pride of intellect without enjoining any intellectual exertion. By a steady adherence to its doctrines, a dunce may exalt himself to a pinnacle of judgment, from which the first authors of the world appear as splendid madmen, whose enormous writhings and contortions, as they occasionally blunder into grace and grandeur of motion, show an undisciplined strength, which would, if subjected to rule, produce great effects. A Bond-street exquisite complacently surveying a thunder-scarred Titan through an opera-glass, is but a type of a Grub-street critic measuring a Milton or a Shakspeare with his three-foot rule. But the golden period of this kind of criticism, when mediocrity sat cross-legged on the body of genius, and

* Shakspeare's Plays, with his Life. Illustrated with many hundred Wood-cuts, executed by H. W. Hewet, after designs by Kenny Meadows, Harvey, and others. Edited by Gulian C. Verplanck, LL.D., with Critical Introductions, Notes, etc., Original and Selected. New York: Harper & Brothers. 3 vols. 8vo.

Lectures on Shakspeare. By H. N. Hudson. New York: Baker & Scrib2 vols.

ner.

VOL. II.

12mo.

North American Review, July, 1848. 14

sagely delivered its oracular nonentities, has happily passed away. The fat bishop of the elder time who discovered that the Paradise Lost was a licentious and blasphemous poem, and the lean authorling who first informed the world that Shakspeare was an inspired idiot, have both departed into the void inane. The period has gone by when France could dismiss Shakspeare from the company of Corneille and Racine as a clever barbarian, or England herself rate him as a sort of miraculous monstrosity, - neither so elegant as Waller, nor so correct as Mr. Pope. The old antithesis between genius and judgment, taste and creative power, which has sparkled and rung in so many knowing sentences, has now lost most of its point, and is enjoyed only as a gem from the antique. It is no longer the fashion for beauty to be tested by elegance, or truth by mechanical correctness, or nature by convention, or art by artifice. Mr. Prettyman, with his conceited lisp, and Sir Artegal's Talus, with his iron flail, have both been banished from the gardens of the Hesperides.

This substitution of a philosophy of criticism for an anarchy of dogmas is especially seen in the recent editions of Shakspeare. Fifty years ago, he was compared, in reference to his commentators, to Actæon hunted to death by his own dogs. But the present generation has witnessed a marked change in the spirit and principles of the criticism by which he has been tried. Could all those Sir Francis Wrongheads of the last century, who undertook to patronize Shakspeare as a wild, unregulated genius, and kindly volunteered their praise on the score of his great faults being balanced by great beauties, suddenly start up in the present age, we may well imagine with what a stare of blank amazement they would observe his elevation to the throne of art. It might reasonably be supposed that old John Dennis and Mr. Rymer would retire in disgust to their tombs, rather than accept the boon of life in a generation devoted to so Egyptian an adoration of deformities. The difference between an old critic picking flaws in Shakspeare's expression of passion, and a modern critic raving about the artistic significance of Shakspeare's puns, indicates the extremes of criticism through which the "myriad-minded" has passed. At present there appears to be no danger that his intellectual supremacy will be questioned. The antiquary who ventures to stammer a little in the old jargon is quietly dropped by good society; the sciolist who blurts out a blunt objection is vehemently hissed into non-existence. Schlegel's prediction, that Shakspeare's fame for centuries to come would "continue to gather strength, like an Alpine avalanche, at every moment of its progress," seems to be in the process of verification; for with every new edition and criticism the giant dilates into larger and larger dimensions. He has invaded France; he has conquered Germany. The principalities and powers of literature find no safety but in the acknowledgment of his supremacy. To the old republic of letters he comes as the intellectual Cæsar, who is to establish a universal dominion. The different orders of the literary state, far from opposing his pretensions, are engaged in hymning his divinity. Here and there some lean Cassius mutters treason against the god, complains that he bestrides the world like a Colossus, and leaves other poets little to do but peep about for dishonorable graves; but all peevish exceptions are drowned in the universal shout which lifts his name to the skies.

"Nothing can cover his high fame but heaven ;
No pyramids set off his memories
But the eternal substance of his greatness."

This idolatry of Shakspeare is partly the cause and partly the effect of a new school of criticism, which assumes to judge works of art after a new code of principles. The mistake which the old order of critics made consisted in overlooking the doctrine of vital powers. They judged the form of Shakspeare's works by certain external rules, before they had interpreted the inward life which shaped the form. Shakspeare's genius was always felt as supreme above others, because its reality and force could not be resisted; but the criticism which should have made it understood as well as felt, which should have accounted for its effects, pursued exactly the opposite course. Instead of attempting to translate it to the understanding by evolving its principles, it placed it in antagonism to certain notions in the understanding, which were unfounded in the nature of things. Because genius has its own laws, it is not therefore to be considered lawless; yet such was the judgment passed upon Shakspeare's genius by men who, substituting dogmatism for analysis, did not possess the first requisite of a critic, that of understanding the thing criticized. The consequence was, an absurd opposition between judgment and feeling, taste and genius. Men were compelled to admire what they were taught to condemn. We perceive the effect of this even in a man of such comprehensive sympathies as Dryden. Nothing can be more contemptible than Dryden's criticism on Shakspeare's art; yet when he abandoned his rules, and trusted to his own conceptions of excellence, — when he ceased to judge as a critic and spoke as a poet, - nothing can excel the warmth or the