the gall even from expressions that were esteemed as the sarcasm of Ben Jonson's surly ingratitude or envy. 66 The subject of Shakespeare's dramatic and poetical character is so vast that it would be idle here to attempt its analysis. The variety of its attributes has, as might have been expected, drawn both censure and applause from different tastes and ages. Voltaire could see in Hamlet only the work of a "drunken savage." The mechanical pedantry of Rymer sees in Othello only "a bloody farce:" "a tragedy of a pocket handkerchief." We shall quote the celebrated passage of Dryden, eulogised by Johnson as a perpetual model of encomiastic criticism; exact without minuteness, and lofty without exaggeration.”—“He (Shakespeare) 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 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 clinches, his serious into bombast. But he is always great, when some 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." This "epitome of excellence," as Johnson terms the above criticism, must constitute our sole tribute to Shakespeare's merits. The voluminous admiration of more modern times does not contain a very great deal more than is compressed into the vigour of Dryden's summary. We would simply invite attention to the higher views of the philosophy of Shakespeare's works suggested by Schlegel and Coleridge. Great attention has been paid to the text of his dramas by his recent editors, Knight, Collier, Dyce, Singer, and Halliwell. FROM THE MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. Act II. Scene 1. OBERON'S VISION. Ob. My gentle Puck, come hither: thou remember'st And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, Puck. I remember. Ob. That very time I saw, but thou couldst not, Cupid all-armed: a certain aim he took At a fair vestal thronéd by the west, FROM MEASURE FOR MEASURE. And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow, In maiden meditation, fancy-free. Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell; It fell upon a little western flower,1 Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, Fetch me that flower; the herb I show'd thee once; Puck. I'll put a girdle round about the earth FROM MEASURE FOR MEASURE Act III. Scene 1. THE DUKE TO CLAUDIO. [Exit. Reason thus with life :- If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That none but fools would keep; a breath thou art, That do this habitation, where thou keep'st, And yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble ; Are nursed by baseness, thou'rt by no means valiant; Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st 89 1 This celebrated vision is elaborately interpreted by Warburton; the "fair vestal" being, of course, Elizabeth; the Mermaid, Mary Queen of Scots; the Dolphin, the French Dauphin, to whom she was married; the shot stars, the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, who fell in her quarrel. It is probable, however, that the poet aimed at no more than paying a compliment to Elizabeth, who could not fail to be gratified with so exquisite a tribute. 2 An allusion to the shows of the early stage, in which the "Fool" was represented as avoiding "Death" or "Fate," by stratagems which brought him "more immediately into the jaws of it." In a similar allusion Hamlet calls his uncle a Vice of Kings. Act III. Sc. 4. Johnson censures Shakespeare for this representation of death, especially from the lips of a Friar (the Duke is so disguised), to a man on the eve of execution.-Compare this passage with Hamlet's Soliloquy on Death, Act III. Sc. 1. For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get; Thou hast nor youth, nor age; But as it were an after-dinner sleep, Of palsied Eld; and when thou'rt old and rich, Lie hid more thousand deaths; yet death we fear, FROM THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. MERCY.- Portia to Shylock. The quality of Mercy is not strain'd; And earthly power doth then show likest God's, Act v. Scene I. MUSIC. Lor. How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music 1 This is exquisitely imagined. Johnson. FROM THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night Sit, Jessica. Look, how the floor of heaven Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubims,— Jes. I am never merry when I hear sweet music. Fetching mad bounds, bellowing, and neighing loud, If they perchance but hear a trumpet sound, You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, By the sweet power of music. Therefore, the poet 91 [Music. Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods; Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Let no such man be trusted.-Mark the music. Enter Portia and Nerissa at a distance. Por. That light we see is burning in my hall; So shines a good deed in a naughty world. Ner. When the moon shone we did not see the candle. Por. So doth the greater glory dim the less: A substitute shines brightly as a king, Ner. It is your music, madam, of the house. "A patine is the small flat plate used as a cover to the chalice, during the administration of the papal sacrament. heaven star-paved." Lat. patida. Compare Milton, "the road of 2 Allusion to the Pythagorean astronomy. Compare Job xxxviii. 7. 3 The moon. Por. Nothing is good, I see, without respect :1 Ner. Silence bestows the virtue on it, madam. How many things by season season'd are FROM AS YOU LIKE IT. Act II. Scene 1. THE EXILED DUKE'S PHILOSOPHY. Now, my co-mates, and brothers in exile, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head." And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything. Act II. Scene 7. JAQUEZ DESCRIBES THE CLOWN TOUCHSTONE. A fool, a fool!I met a fool i'the forest, A motley fool-a miserable world!— As I do live by food, I met a fool; Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun, In good set terms-and yet a motley fool. "Good morrow, fool," quoth I-" No, Sir," quoth he, "Call me not fool, till heaven have sent me fortune:" 1 Unless considered relatively. 2 So Shakespeare coins co-mart, Ham. Act I. Sc. I. |