immortal bard himself-how true an embodiment of the superstition of the past does that character present! His historical characters, from "King John" to "Henry VIII."-comprising at least two hundred distinctly marked personages-how strikingly correct, with some few excep tions has he presented them to the world: and even where he has been too partial, the fault seems to rest more in the authorities to which he had access, than in the great dramatist himself. His clowns are all distinct and admirable characters in their way; and even the wishy-washy sort of folks, of which the world is even yet principally composed, and of whom there never was, and perhaps never will be, any great lack; those soulless people, who-ignorant of the high purposes of human existence-seem to vegetate rather than to live; do they not all speak and act as in real life,- -so that we could appropriately fill up any blanks in the list of "Persons Represented," by a hundred of the names of our own neighbours and acquaintance?— For the great merit of Shakspere, after all, however much we may love his sweetness-and there is music sweeter than the trill of mountain streams in almost every sentence is his truth fulnessto nature, at all times, and under all circumstances possible or imaginable. He has not merely laboured to delineate a very good or a very bad character, but such personages as do really exist; virtue and vice joined together in the same soul, and developed in a thousand various ways, according to an infinite variety of circumstances. But his female characters-that glorious gallery of everliving portraits-how beautiful and womanly they are; save his intention be to show how fallen, how depraved, even the gentle heart of woman may become,- -as in the unkind daughters of poor King Lear, and the proud and cruel Lady Macbeth. Virtue with him is ever victorious; it is undaunted under suffering, and triumphant even in death. What a fine philosophy pervades each of his dramas; and weak indeed must be the penetration of the man who can discover no high moral purpose, running, like veins of silver in the earth, through all the writings of Shakspere. We need not envy the soul that has never felt its self-reliance strengthened by a perusal of these immortal dramas. They are not only moral, but religious, in the highest meaning of that word. Compared with Marlow-a man of undoubted genius, to whom both Shakspere and the English drama owe much-how superior he is!"Hyperion to a satyr:" and yet Marlow was perhaps the greatest of the precursors of Shakspere, though much merit is undoubtedly due both to Lyly and Greene. I do not contend that Shakspere, with all his unequalled inspiration and judgment, was either impeccable or infallible, for we know that he was "a man subject to the like passions as we are ;"* but all his contemporaries-with the single exception of poor unhappy Robert Greene, as we shall see anon-whenever they have occasion to mention him, either as an author or otherwise, ever speak of him in terms of the highest encomium and endearment. One can excuse Greene's injustice to Shakspere, when we remember his misfortunes, and say with their mutual friend and brother-dramatist, Henry Chettle, "I am as sorry as if the original fault had been my fault." It is not my province here to attempt any criticism on the writings of the greatest of all dramatists: nor do I possess either the time, the learning, or the genius requisite for so important a task. Shakspere is far above the comprehension of that feeble-minded school of would-be-critics who have presumed to sit in judgment and pass sentence upon him. These "clever" men-clever, at least, in their own estimation, and in that of a hood-winked world-can never comprehend the aims of genius: for between this said cleverness and true genius "there is a wide gulph fixed." The world, the British nation, the individual man or woman, can never fully know how much they are indebted to those plays of Shakspere; plays of which the majority of our population are most lamentably ignorant, in the direct sense; but plays, nevertheless, whose language, ideas, and moral sentiments, have exercised a most powerful and beneficial influence on humanity, from which it can never altogether backslide. It is not too much to say, that every man, woman, and child, wherever the English language is spoken, are deeply indebted to the writings of William Shakspere,-even though they may never have witnessed the performance, or read one scene, of his plays. No human being ever lived without some influence in the world. "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, as the poet Gray beautifully expresses it; but there is not one that "wastes its perfume," no, not even when it breathes and renders fragrant "the desert air." Never was a true word spoken, or a righteous action done, altogether in vain; perhaps no valuable thought that ever lingered in a human brain has been altogether lost in the * James, chap. v., ver. 17. world! But the influence of a Shakspere's mind is universal and eternal; it is the concentration of the mental influence of a thousand other men, both in his own and all former ages; and may well be termed a mighty instrument in the hands of our All-Wise Creator, for accomplishing the most important objects in the civilisation of the whole family of man. "It was not possible to write the history of Shakspere till now," says Waldo Emerson; "for he is the father of German literature: it was on the introduction of Shakspere into German, by Lessing, and the translation of his works by Wieland and Schlegel, that the rapid burst of German literature was most intimately connected." And he adds: "Now, literature, philosophy, and thought, are Shaksperised His mind is the horizon beyond which, at present, we do not see. Our ears are educated to music by his rythm. Coleridge and Goethe are the only critics who have expressed our convictions with any adequate fidelity but there is in all cultivated minds a silent appreciation of his superlative power and beauty, which, like Christianity, qualifies the period." : The more we read the writings of Shakspere, the more we love them; every fresh perusal discovers to us new worlds of beauty; and the more we become acquainted with them, the more we become acquainted with our own souls. Why do not the rational portion of our population make a firm stand for the revival of Shakspere in all his glory on the boards of every theatre, and banish Italian operas, Nigger songs, lewd dances, pantomimes, and all namby-pamby pieces, from the stage? And let not those men who wish well to humanity, and are disgusted with the present degraded condition of our theatres, set their faces against dramatic representations altogether, but rather fight manfully for their reformation. Never let us despair of progress: no, not even under the greatest re-action. The good work which a Macready so bravely attempted for the purification of the stage, would have succeeded beyond his most sanguine anticipations, but for the accursed apathy of professed moral reformers. Defeat in a just cause is more glorious than a victory unsanctioned by justice. The good seed will germinate, and one day yield its harvest. It was no mere partial friendship, but true discernment of " rare Ben Jonson," when he declared of Shakspere, that "He was not of an age, but for all time!" and "all time," through every change of faction and of fashion, will confirm the decision, whilst Truth and Beauty have their worshippers on earth: and Keats truly tells us, in the opening of his "Endymion," that "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." And yet the life of Shakspere-the greatest genius the world has ever yet produced-remains to be written: all that has hitherto been penned on the subject being so much material piled up, and carefully preserved, for the building. Some day, a new architect will spring up in the literary world, and-whilst he reverently thanks all other architects for the aid their various styles have given him--will skilfully work up the accumulated materials into an artistic temple, worthy of the memory of him who "being dead yet speaketh," in his writings, to the hearts and intellects of all his countrymen. : "In our halls is hung Armoury of the invincible knights of old⚫ WORDSWORTH. How interesting, how instructive, how heart-ennobling, such a tome will prove! Then will the great prophetic mission of the inspired bards of every land be duly appreciated then will the much-despised poets-despised of silly and self-styled "practical" men-be found to have been the truest utilitarians, the priests of progress in all ages of the world. If I might be permitted, for a moment, to resume that figure of the temple, I would say, It must be a Pantheon in which all the demi-gods and heroes of our literature will stand enshrined: those who have used their God-given genius for the advancement of their race, crowned with the bloodless laurel and chaplets of the well-earned bays; but they who have prostituted their talents-who have steeped their souls in the dark pools of Pollution-let them wear the degrading sackcloth and ashes, as a warning-penance to all future writers, for all time. In that temple there should be room for all who seek instruction, or come to worship: a temple with which the capacious theatres of Athens, of Pompeii, of Herculaneum, or of Rome-mere blocks of polished marble at the best, however deftly piled-will be insignificant, and compared with which Solomon's Temple would be but a useless toy. That temple will one day be built; or, to drop the metaphor, that volume will one day be written. When all the materials are ready, and the ages are ripe to receive it, rest assured that God will find a builder. The law of progression is not yet extinct. The whole of our information respecting Shakspere is but limited there is a cloud of obscurity hanging about his personal history, which perhaps may never be altogether removed. His contemporaries, whilst they carefully secured to us his unequalled productions, contented themselves with bearing their testimony to his "gentle" demeanour in private life, and wailing their threnodies around his tomb. The same mystery shrouds several other of our early dramatic and other poets. To live while upon this beautiful earth, and not merely to vegetate; to aid the cause of civilization in its slow but ever onward march; and to leave their lasting monuments in the productions of their minds, seem to have been their chief objects. They wrote no biographies for us : they did better-they endeavoured to deserve them. Nevertheless, who does not wish to know more of the private life of Shakspere? Truly enough has Waldo Emerson remarked : "There is somewhat touching in the madness with which the passing age mischooses the object on whieh all candles shine, and all eyes are turned; the care with which it registers every trifle touching Queen Elizabeth and King James, and the Essexes, Leicesters, Burleighs, and Buckinghams; and lets pass without a single valuable note the founder of another dynasty, which alone will cause the Tudor dynasty to be remembered.-the man who carries the Saxon race in him by the inspiration which feeds him, and on whose thoughts the foremost people of the world are now for some ages to be nourished, and their minds to receive this and not another bias. A popular player,-nobody suspected he was the poet of the human race; and the secret was kept as faithfully from poets and intellectual men, as from courtiers and frivolous people. Bacon, who took the inventory of the human understanding for his time, never mentioned his name. Ben Jonson, though we have strained his few words of regard and panegyric, had no suspicion of the elastic fame whose first vibrations he was attempting. He no doubt thought the praise he has conceded to him generous, and esteemed himself, out of all question, the better poet of the two." The few facts that have been ascertained respecting Shakspere have been the rewards of many years of mental toil on the part of a few zealous and industrious men of letters, from Nicholas Rowe, in the 17th century, to Charles Knight, in the present. What other information may yet be in store for us, no one can divine. Doubtless there are documents yet remaining-laying like useless lumber, rotting amidst dust and dampness, unvisited by mortal eye-which only need a Payne Collier's penetration to |