novels and romances, others from legendary tales, and some from older dramas. His English historical plays are chiefly taken from 'Holinshed's Chronicle;' from which source he also derived the plot of Macbeth, perhaps the most transcendant of his works. In his classical subjects, he followed North's translation of Plutarch's Lives of Illustrious Grecians and Romans. Various attempts have been made to determine the chronological order in which Shakspeare's dramas were produced; but we know no other source of information on this subject than that which is discoverable in the works themselves. In Pericles, the Two Gentlemen of Verona, and the earlier comedies, we see the timidity and immaturity of youthful genius; a halfformed style, bearing frequent traces of that of his predecessors; fantastic quibbles and conceits; only a partial development of character; a romantic and playful fancy; but no great strength of imagination, energy or passion. In Richard the Second, and Richard the Third, the creative and master mind are visible in the creation of character. In the Midsummer Night's Dream, the Merchant of Venice, and Romeo and Juliet, we find the ripened poetical imagination, prodigality of invention, and a searching meditative spirit. These qualities, with a finer vein of morality and contemplative philosophy, pervade As You Like It, and the Twelfth Night. In Henry the Fourth, the Merry Wives, Measure for Measure, and Much Ado About Nothing, we see the inimitable powers of comedy, full-formed, swelling in an atmosphere of joyous life, and fresh as if from the hand of nature. He took a loftier flight in his classical dramas, and both conceived and finished them with consummate taste and freedom. In his later tragedies, Lear, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and the Tempest, all his wonderful faculties are combined-his wit, his pathos, his passion and his sublimity-his profound knowledge and observation of mankind, mellowed by a refined humanity and benevolence-his imagination richer from skillful culture and added stories of information-his unrivalled language, like 'light from heaven'his imagery and versification.

In contemplating the genius of this wonderful dramatist, the mind becomes bewildered amid its compass and variety. From the finest and most delicately spun fibres in the texture of female passion and feeling, he could ascend, without an apparent effort, to the most lofty and terrifically sublime attributes of man-touching all the grades of variety that present themselves in his passage, with unerring fidelity and truth. This power we can ascribe only to the unparalleled sympathies of the great poet's nature. To speak of his exquisite delineations of man, in every conceivable grade of life, would be superfluous; for that has been the theme of almost every dramatic critic for the last two hundred years. His excellence in drawing the character of woman has, however, by no means been so generally acknowledged. Even Collins, after eulogizing the female characters of Beaumont and Fletcher, adds

But stronger Shakspeare felt for Man alone.

It is true that Shakspeare's females are creations of a very different stamp

from those which are apt to be popular on the stage. Their sorrows are not obstreperous and theatrical; but

The still sad music of Humanity

as Wordsworth has finely phrased it-is heard throughout all their history. The poet's own description of a lover

All made of passion, and all made of wishes;

All adoration, duty, and obedience;

All humbleness, all patience, and impatience;
All purity, all trial, all observance;

will apply with equal accuracy to his delineations of woman. Sighs, tears, passion, trial, and humility, are the components of her character; and to whatever extent other dramatic writers may endeavor to 'elevate and surprise' by pursuing a different course, these are the materials which nature, if her dictates be followed, will uniformly furnish.

The general cast of character in Shakspeare's females is tenderness and pathos; but this is not because he was unable to delineate woman in her more dignified and commanding, though less ordinary, attitude. Hence there is nothing more majestic, and, we may say, awful, on the stage than Katherine defending herself against the malice and hypocrisy of Henry; and nothing more fearful and appalling than the whole character of Lady Macbeth, from the first scene in which her ambition is awakened by the perusal of her husband's letter, to the last, in which we discover its bitter fruits, in treason, murder, and insanity. Then there is the Lady Constancea woman, a mother, and a princess; seen in all the fearful vicissitudes of human life; hoping, exulting, blessing, fearing, weeping, despairing, and, at last, dying. Shall we add the Weird Sisters, those foul anomalies,' in whom all that is malignant and base in the female character is exaggerated to an unearthly stature; and those gentler beings, such as Juliet and Desdemona, who, with frailties and imperfections which ally them to earth, yet approximate to those superior and benevolent spirits, of whom we have such exquisite pictures in Ariel, and the Fairies, in the Midsummer Night's Dream? Cleopatra, Volumina, and Isabella, are farther instances of Shakspeare's power of exhibiting the loftier and stronger traits of the female character. His picture of the fascinating Egyptian queen is absolutely a master-piece. In perusing it, we feel no longer astonished that crowns and empires were sacrificed for her. We have many splendid descriptions of her personal charms; but it is her mind, the strength of her passion, the fervor and fury of her love, the bitterness of her hatred, and the desperation of her death, which take so strong a hold upon the imagination. We follow her, we admire her, we sympathize with her; and when the asp has done its fatal work, we are ready to exclaim with Charmion

Now boast thee, Death! in thy possession lies

A lass unparallel'd.

6

How different a being from this is the ill-fated fair who slumbers in 'the tomb of the Capulets.' She is all gentleness and mildness, all hidden passion and silent suffering; yet her love is as ardent, her sorrows are as overwhelming, and her death as melancholy. The gentle lady wedded to the Moor' is another sweet, still picture, which we contemplate with admiration, until death drops his curtain over it. Imogen and Miranda, Perdita and Ophelia, Cordelia, Helen and Viola, need only to be mentioned to recall to mind the most fascinating pictures of female character that have ever been delineated. The last is, indeed, a mere sketch, but it is a most charming one; and its best description is that exquisite paraphrase, in which the character is so beautifully summed up :

She never told her love,

But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,

Feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought,

And with a green and yellow melancholy,

She sat, like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at Grief.

Of Shakspeare's comic female characters we need mention only Rosalind and Beatrice. In the first we find an admirable compound of wit, gayety, and good-humor, blended, at the same time, with deep and strong passion, with courage and resolution; with unshaken affection to her father, and constant and fervid love for Orlando. How extraordinary and romantic is the character if we contemplate it in the abstract, yet how beautiful and true to nature, if we examine it in all its details. Beatrice is a character of a very different order from Rosalind, and yet she resembles her in some particulars. She has all her wit; but it must be confessed, without her goodhumor. Her arrows are not merely piercing, but poisoned. Rosalind's is cheerful raillery, Beatrice's satirical bitterness; Rosalind is not only afraid to strike, but unwilling to wound: Beatrice is careless of the effect of her wit, if she can but find an opportunity to utter it. But we must forbear.

The difficulty of making selections from such a poet as Shakspeare must be obvious to all. His characters are as various and diversified as those in human life; he has exhausted all styles, and has one for each description of poetry and action; his wit, humor, satire, and pathos, are spread throughout his entire works. We have felt our task, therefore, to be something like being deputed to search in some magnificent forest for a handful of the finest leaves or plants, and as if we were diligently exploring the world of woodland beauty to accomplish faithfully this hopeless adventure. Happily Shakspeare is in all hands, and a single leaf will recall the fertile and majestic scenes of his inspiration.

We shall make our selections, as nearly as possible, in the order already indicated, beginning with the much neglected play of Pericles. This was, doubtless, a production of the immortal bard's youth, and therefore contains many imperfections; but the following passages alone, are sufficient to identify its origin :

PERICLES' SOLILOQUY ON A SHIP AT SEA.

Thou God of the great vast! rebuke these surges
Which wash both heaven and hell; and Thou, that hast
Upon the winds command, bind them in brass,

Having call'd them from the deep! Oh! still thy deaf'ning,
Thy dreadful thunders! gently quench the nimble,
Sulphureous flashes! Thou storm! thou, venomously,

Wilt thou spit all thyself? The seaman's whistle
Is as a whisper in the ears of death,

Unheard.

The following description of the recovery of Thaisa from a state of suspended animation, is also powerfully eloquent:

Nature wakes; a warmth

Breathes out of her; she hath not been entranced
Above five hours. See how she 'gins to blow
Into life's flower again!-She is alone; behold,
Her eyelids, cases to those heavenly jewels
Which Pericles hath lost,

Begin to part their fingers of bright gold,
The diamonds of a most praised water
Appear to make the world twice rich.

Marina, the daughter of Pericles, and heroine of the play, is born at sea, during a storm; and Shakspeare, in this drama, as in the Winter's Tale,' leaps over the intervening years, and shows her, in the fourth act, on the eve of womanhood;' where her first speech, on the death of her nurse, sweetly plaintive and poetical:

No, no; I will rob Tellus of her weed

To strew thy grave with flowers! the yellows, blues,

The purple violets, and marygolds,

Shall as a chaplet hang upon thy grave,

While summer-days do last. Ah me! poor maid,

Born in a tempest, when my mother died,

This world to me is like a lasting storm,
Whirring me from my friends.

is

In the course of the play Marina undergoes a variety of adventures, in all of which the mingled gentleness and dignity of her character is admirably developed. The interview with her father in the fifth act, is, indeed, one of the most powerful and affecting passages in the whole range of the English drama. The extracts, from other dramas, which follow, are introduced without comment, because they are all we know.

DESCRIPTION OF A MOONLIGHT NIGHT, WITH MUSIC.

Lor. The moon shines bright: in such a night as this,
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,
And they did make no noise; in such a night,
Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan's wall,

And sigh'd his soul towards the Grecian tents,
Where Cressid lay that night.

Jes. In such a night

Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew;

And saw the lion's shadow ere himself,

And ran dismay'd away.

Lor. In such a night

Stood Dido with a willow in her hand

Upon the wide sea-banks, and waft her love
To come again to Carthage.

Jes. In such a night

Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs
That did renew old son.

Lor. In such a night

Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew,

And with an unthrift love did run from Venice
As far as Belmont.

Jes. And in such a night

Did young Lorenzo swear he lov'd her well;
Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,
And ne'er a true one.

Lor. And in such a night

Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew,
Slander her love, and he forgave it her.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
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 patines of bright gold;

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;

But while this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we can not hear it.
Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn:
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with music.

Jes. I'm 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

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 his nature.