gether, and thereby Hector knew that he was his cousingerman, son of his aunt; and then Hector, for courtesy, embraced him in his arms, and made great cheer, and offered to him to do all his pleasure, if he desired anything of him, and prayed him that he would come to Troy with him for to see his lineage of his mother's side: but the said Thelamon, that intended to nothing but to his best advantage, said that he would not go at this time. But he prayed Hector, requesting that, if he loved him so much as he said, that he would for his sake, and at his instance, cease the battle for that day, and that the Troyans should leave the Greeks in peace. The unhappy Hector accorded unto him his request, and blew a horn, and made all his people to withdraw into the city." Neoptolemus so mirable"-Johnson thinks that, by "Neoptolemus," Shakespeare meant Achilles : finding that the son was Pyrrhus Neoptolemus, he considered Neoptolemus as the nomen gentilitium, and thought the father was likewise Achilles Neoptolemus. Or he was probably led into the error by some book of the time. By a passage in act ii. scene 3, it is evident that he knew Pyrrhus had not yet engaged in the siege of Troy : But it must grieve young Pyrrhus, now at home, etc. "-her loud'st O YES"-This is the well-known cor ruption of the Norman-French Oyez, (Hear Ye!) still preserved in the English courts in this form, and in some parts of the United States, as a proclamation for opening and adjourning courts. The corruption is so well understood, and has become so much of an English word, that there is no reason for altering the original reading to Oyez, as has been done in very many editions. "-and see your knights"-These "knights," to the amount of about two hundred thousand, Shakespeare found, with all the appendages of chivalry, in the old "Troy Book." Malone remarks that knight and squire excite ideas of chivalry. Pope, in his Homer," has been liberal in his use of the latter. 64 -most IMPERIOUS Agamemnon"-" Imperious," in Shakespeare's day, seems used with much latitude, as nearly synonymous with imperial, though sometimes distinguished from it by its use in our modern sense. Bullokar, a lexicographer of that age, in his “English Expositor," thus distinguishes the words:-" Imperial; royal, chief-like, emperor-like: Imperious; that commandeth with authority, lord-like, stately." Still, I think that, in poetic and rhetorical use, the line was not distinctly drawn between these approximating senses. "— UNTRADED oath”—i. e. Unused, uncommon. "Labouring for destiny"-i. e. As the minister or vicegerent of destiny. "SCORNING forfeits and subduements"-So the folio; the quarto— Despising many forfeits and subduements. lord Ulysses, THOU"-The repetition of "thou," in this manner, was an old mode of expressing contempt or anger, as in this play, (act v. scene 1:)" Thou tassel of a prodigal's purse, thou." But as there seems no sufficient cause for contempt or anger in the speaker, and the context does not imply it, it is very probable that "thou" is a misprint for though, which affords a more natural sense. "You may have every day enough of Hector, If you have stomach; the general state I fear," etc. Ajax treats Achilles with contempt, and means to insinuate that he was afraid of fighting with Hector. You may every day (says he) have enough of Hector, if you have the inclination; but I believe the whole state of Greece will scarcely prevail on you to be at odds with him-to contend with him." "PELTING wars"-i. e. Petty, insignificant. So in MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM-"every pelting river." "There in the full CONVIVE you"-A “convive" is a feast. "The sitting of friends together at a table, our auncestors have well called convivium, (a banket,) because it is a living of men together."-HUTTON. The word is several times used in "Helyas the Knight of the Swanne." if he can take her CLIFF"-i. e. Her key, (clef French)-a mark in music, at the beginning of the lines of a song, etc., which indicates the pitch, and whether it is suited for a bass, treble, or tenor voice. "Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve." This sleeve, which had been previously given by Troilus to Cressida, appears (says Malone) to have been an ornamented cuff, such as was worn by some of our young nobility, at a tilt, in Shakespeare's age. (See Spenser's "View of Ireland," p. 43, edit. 1633:)—" Also the deep smock sleive, which the Irish women use, they say was old Spanish, and is used yet in Barbary: and yet that should seem to be rather an old English fashion; for in armoury, the fashion of the manche which is given in arms by many, being indeed nothing else but a sleive, is fashioned much like to that sleive." "The story of Cressida's falsehood is prettily told by Chancer. Shakespeare has literally copied one of the incidents: She made him wear a pencell of her sleeve. But we still trace the inconsistency of character in Chaucer's Cressida. Mr. Godwin laments that Shakespeare has not interested us in his principal female, as Chaucer has done. Such an interest would have been bought at the expense of truth."-KNIGHT. "Troilus, farewell! one eye yet looks on thee; But with my heart the other eye doth see." "One eye (says Cressida) looks on Troilus; but the other follows Diomed, where my heart is fixed." Stevens observes that the characters of Cressida and Pandarus are more immediately formed from Chaucer than from Lydgate; for though the latter mentions them both characteristically, he does not sufficiently dwell on either to have furnished Shakespeare with many circumstances to be found in this tragedy. Lydgate, speaking of Cressida, says only: 44 : She gave her heart and love to Diomed, To show what trust there is in womankind; But Troilus was clean out of her mind I cannot conjure, Trojan"-i. e. She must have been here, for I have no power to raise a magic representation of her by conjuration. " — stubborn CRITICS, apt, without a theme"-The annotators here say that "critic" is taken in the sense of cynic. It is rather taken in the sense of censurer, as was, and is still, common. Thus Iago says, "I am nothing if not critical." "BI-FOLD authority"-" The folio reads, By foul authority,' etc. There is a madness in that disquisition, in which a man reasons at once for and against himself, upon authority' which he knows not to be valid. The words loss and perdition, in the subsequent line, are used in their common sense; but they mean the loss or perdition of reason."-JOHNSON. - O madness of DISCOURSE"-" Discourse," in older English, comprehends all reasoning, whether expressed in words, or only mental. "ARIACHNE's broken woof"-Many editors, anxious for the Poet's classical accuracy, have corrected this to Arachne, at the expense of the metre. It is evidently a mere slip of the Poet's memory, in a point of schoolboy learning, and cannot be corrected without making a very harsh line, which he did not intend. One quarto reads Ariachna's; the other Ariathna's; the folio" Ariachne's." It is evident Shakespeare intended to make Ariachne a word of four syllables. Stevens thinks it probable that the Poet may have written, "Ariadne's broken woof," confounding the two stories in his imagination, or alluding to the clue of thread, by the assistance of which Theseus escaped from the Cretan labyrinth. "O INSTANCE"-Here "instance" is used for proof, as in HENRY IV., (Part II. :)-"I have received a certain instance that Glendower is dead." In RICHARD III. :-"His fears are shallow, wanting instance." "May worthy Troilus be half attach'd," etc. That is "Can Troilus really feel, on this occasion, half of what he utters? A question suitable to the calm Ulysses."-JOHNSON. "Stand fast, and wear a CASTLE on thy head," etc. A particular kind of close helmet was called a "castle." In the "History of Prince Arthur," (1634, chap. 158,) we find, "Do thou thy best, (said Sir Gawaine ;) therefore hie thee fast that thou wert gone, and wit thou well we shall soon come after, and break the strongest castle that thou hast upon thy head." But it here seems to have a more general sense:"Wear a defence as strong as a castle on your head, if you want to be safe." To hurt by being just: it is as lawful, For we would give much, to so count violent thefts, And rob in the behalf of charity." These lines were not in the first editions, but were added in the folio, and unfortunately so misprinted as to give no sense, thus: Do not count it holy To hurt by being just: it is as lawful: For we would count give much to as violent thefts, Knight proposes to amend thus: For we would give much, to use violent thefts. "To use thefts" is clearly not Shakespearian. Perhaps count, or give, might be omitted, supposing that one word had been substituted for another in the manuscript, without the erasure of that first written; but this omnission will not give us a meaning. We have ventured to transpose count, and omit as : For.we would give much, to count violent thefts. We have now a clear meaning :-It is as lawful, because we desire to give much, to count violent thefts as holyAnd rob in the behalf of charity. Collier prints the line, "For us to give much count to violent thefts," which affords no distinct sense. The reading now first proposed, in this edition, makes no verbal change but of as into so, and transposes count, which is evidently out of place in the original. The whole then means-" Do not count it holy to inflict in jury in the pursuit of right; we might as well so count (i. e. count holy) violent thefts committed to enable us to give liberally." "Violent" was probably meant to be pronounced vi'lent, with no unusual poetical license. - keeps the weather of my fate"-To "keep the weather" is to keep the wind, or advantage. "Estre au dessus du vent" is the French proverbial phrase. "the DEAR man"-i. e. The man really of worth. "better fits a lion than a man”—“The traditions and stories of the darker ages (says Johnson) abounded with examples of the lion's generosity. Upon the sup position that these acts of clemency were true, Troilus reasons, that to spare against reason, by mere instinct of pity, became rather a generous beast than a wise man." "Hence, broker lackey! ignomy and shame Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name." "This couplet, which we here find in the folio, is again used by Troilus, towards the conclusion of the play-the last words which Troilus speaks. In al modern editions the lines are omitted in the close of the third scene. Stevens says, the Poet would hardly have given us an unnecessary repetition of the same words, nor have dismissed Pandarus twice in the same manner.' Why not? Is the repetition unnecessary! Is not the loathing which Troilus feels towards Pandarus more strongly marked by this repetition? We have no doubt about the restoration of the lines."-KNIGHT. SCENE IV. "What art thou, Greek, art thou for Hector's match? Art thou of blood and honour?" This idea is derived from the ancient books of chivalry. A person of superior birth might not be chal lenged by an inferior; or, if challenged, might refuse the combat. In this spirit, Cleopatra says These hands do lack nobility, that they strike A meaner than themselves. In Melvil's" Memoirs," we find it stated:-"The laird of Grainge offered to fight Bothwell, who answered, that he was neither earl nor lord, but a baron; and s was not his equal. The like answer made he to Tullibardine. Then my lord Lindsay offered to fight him. which he could not well refuse; but his heart failed him, and he grew cold in the business." SCENE V. "Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus' horse," etc." This circumstance is also minutely copied from the "Destruction of Troy :" "And of the party of the Troyans came the king Ademon that jousted against Menelaus, and smote him, and hurt him in the face: and he and Troylus took him, and had led him away, if Diomedes had not come the sooner with a great company of knights, and fought with Troylas at his coming, and smote him down, and took his horse, and sent it to Briseyda, and did cause to say to her by his servant that it was Troylus's horse, her love, and that he had conquered him by his promise, and prayed her from thenceforth that she would hold him for her love." the dreadful SAGITTARY Appals our numbers," etc. In the "Three Destructions of Troy," we are told, that " Beyond the royalme of Amasonne came an auncyent Kynge, wyse and dyscreete, named Epystrophus, and brought a M. [thousand] Knyghtes, and a mervayllouse beste that was called Sagittayre, that behynde the myddes was an horse, and tofore a man. This beste was heery like an horse, and had his eyen red as a cole, and shotte well with a bowe. This beste made the Grekes sore aferde, and slewe many of them with his bowe." * * "Rest, sword: thou hast thy fill of blood and death!" Shakespeare borrowed the circumstance which preceded the death of Hector from the Gothic romancers:"When Achilles saw that Hector slew thus the nobles of Greece, and so many other that it was marvel to behold, he thought that, if Hector were not slain, the Greeks would never have victory. And forasmuch as he had slain many kings and princes, he ran upon him marvellously; but Hector cast to him a dart fiercely, and made him a wound in his thigh: and then Achilles issued out of the battle, and did bind up his wound, and took a great spear in purpose to slay Hector, if he might meet him. Among all these things Hector had taken a very noble baron of Greece, that was quaintly and richly armed, and, for to lead him out of the host at his ease, had cast his shield behind him at his back, and had left his breast discovered: and as he was in this point, and took none heed of Achilles, he came privily unto him, and thrust his spear within his body, and Hector fell down dead to the ground." -the VAIL and darking of the sun"-" The 'vail' of the sun" is the sinking, setting, or vailing of the sun. “Strike, fellows, strike; this is the man I seek." From the same authorities Shakespeare took the inci "After these things the nineteenth battle began with great slaughter; and afore that Achilles entered into the battle he assembled his Myrmidons, and prayed them that they would intend to none other thing but to enclose Troylus, and to hold him without flying till he came, and that he would not be far from them. And they promised him that they so would. And he thronged into the battle. And on the other side came Troplus, that began to flee and beat down all them that he caught, and did so much, that about mid-day he put the Greeks to flight: then the Myrmidons (that were two thousand fighting men, and had not forgot the commandment of their lord) thrust in among the Troyans, and recovered the field. And as they held them together, and sought no man but Troylus, they found him that he fought strongly, and was enclosed on all parts, but he slew and wounded many. And as he was all alone among them, and had no man to succour him, they slew his horse, and hurt him in many places, and plucked off his head helm, and his coif of iron, and he defended him in the best manner he could. Then came on Achilles, when he saw Troilus all naked, and ran upon him in a rage, and smote off his head, and cast it under the feet of his horse, and took the body and bound it to the tail of his horse, and so drew it after him throughout the host." Knight adds, that Shakespeare again goes to his "Homer," when Achilles trails Hector "along the field :”— This said, a work not worthy him he set to; of both feet He bor'd the nerves through from the heel to th' ankle, and then knit Both to his chariot with a thong of white leather, his head And there lay Troy's late gracious, by Jupiter exil'd, 64 STICKLER-LIKE, the armies separate"-The business of a 66 'stickler" was to part the combatants when victory could be determined without bloodshed. They are said to have been called sticklers" from carrying sticks or staves in their hands, with which they interposed between the duellists. Minshew gives this explanation in his "Dictionary," (1617:)-" A stickler between two; so called as putting a stick or staff between two fencing or fighting together." The phrase, so uncouth to us, was familiar in the Poet's day. 66 'Along the field I will the Trojan trail." Stevens quotes old Lydgate as the source of this incident in the play, the Poet changing Troilus into Hector. His thirty-first chapter is entitled, "How Achilles slew the worthy Troylus unknyghtly, and after travled his body through the fyelds, tyed to his horse." Mr. Knight, on the contrary, supposes Shakespeare to “go to his Homer' when Achilles trails Hector along the field." But there is no reason to suppose that Shakespeare was a Greek scholar, and at the time when this play was printed, (1609,) it does not appear that Chapman had published more than the first nineteen books of his translation of the "Iliad." His entire translation of "The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets," which is without date, appears from the date of the entry of its copy to have appeared in 1611, or later. Now, this incident of the treatment of Hector's body is in the twen ty-second book of the "Iliad." It is, therefore, rather to be presumed that Shakespeare got this classical incident from the "Eneid," either in the original or from the translation of Phaer, (1584,) or of Stanyhurst, of about the same date. The scholar will recollect, in the second "Eneid," the vision of the sad Hector: Raptatus bigis, ut quondam aterque cruento "This play is more correctly written than most of Shakespeare's compositions, but it is not one of those in which either the extent of his views or elevation of his fancy is fully displayed. As the story abounded with materials, he has exerted little invention; but he has diversified his characters with great variety, and preserved them with great exactness. His vicious characters disgust, but cannot corrupt; for both Cressida and Pandarus are detested and condemned. The comic characters seem to have been the favourites of the writer: they are of the superficial kind, and exhibit more of manners than nature; but they are copiously filled and powerfully impressed. Shakespeare has in his story followed, for the greater part, the old book of Caxton, which was then very popular; but the character of Thersites, of which it makes no mention, is a proof that this play was written after Chapman had published his version of Homer."-JOHNSON. "The TROILUS AND CRESSIDA of Shakespeare can scarcely be classed with his dramas of Greek and Roman history; but it forms an intermediate link between the fictitious Greek and Roman histories, which we may call legendary dramas, and the proper ancient histories; that is, between the PERICLES, or TITUS ANDRONICUS, and the CORIOLANUS, or JULIUS CESAR. CYMBELINE is a congener with PERICLES, and distinguished from LEAR by not having any declared prominent object. But where shall we class the TIMON OF ATHENS? Perhaps immediately below LEAR. It is a Lear of the satirical drama; a Lear of domestic or ordinary life;-a local eddy of passion on the high road of society, while all around is the week-day goings on of wind and weather: a Lear, therefore, without its soul-searching flashes, its ear-cleaving thunder-claps, its meteoric splendours,— without the contagion and the fearful sympathies of nature, the furies, the frenzied elements, dancing in and out, now breaking through, and scattering,-now hand in hand with, the fierce or fantastic group of human passions, crimes, and anguishes, reeling on the unsteady ground, in a wild harmony to the shock and the swell of an earthquake. But my present subject was TROILUS AND CRESSIDA; and I suppose that, scarcely knowing what to say of it, I by a cunning of instinct ran off to subjects on which I should find it difficult not to say too much, though certain after all that I should still leave the better part unsaid, and the gleaning for others richer than my own harvest. 44 Indeed, there is no one of Shakespeare's plays harder to characterize. The name and the remembrances connected with it, prepare us for the representation of attachinent no less faithful than fervent on the side of the youth, and of sudden and shameless inconstancy on the part of the lady. And this is, indeed, as the gold thread on which the scenes are strung, though often kept out of sight and out of mind by gems of greater value than itself. But as Shakespeare calls forth nothing from the mausoleum of history, or the catacombs of tradition, without giving, or eliciting, some permanent and general interest, and brings forward no subject which he does not moralize or intellectualize, so here he has drawn in Cressida the portrait of a vehement passion, that, having its true origin and proper cause in warmth of temperament, fastens on, rather than fixes to, some one object by liking and temporary preference. There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, This Shakespeare has contrasted with the profound affection represented in Troilus, and alone worthy the name of love;-affection, passionate indeed,-swoln with the confluence of youthful instincts and youthful fancy, and growing in the radiance of hope newly risen. in short enlarged by the collective sympathies of nature;-but still having a depth of calmer element in a will stronger than desire, more entire than choice, and which gives permanence to its own act by converting it into faith and duty. Hence with excellent judgment, and with an excellence higher than mere judgment can give, at the close of the play, when Cressida has sunk into infamy below retrieval and beneath hope, the same will, which had been the substance and the basis of his love, while the restless pleasures and passionate longings, like sea-waves, had tossed but on its surface,--this same moral energy is represented as snatching him aloof from all neighbourhood with her dishonour, from all lingering fondness and languishing regrets, while it rushes with him into other and nobler duties, and deepens the channel, which his heroic brother's death had left empty for its collected flood. yet another secondary and subordinate purpose Shakespeare has inwoven with his delineation of these two characters,—that of opposing the inferior civilization, but purer morals, of the Trojans to the refinements, deep policy, but duplicity and sensual corruptions, of the Greeks. "To all this, however, so little comparative protection is given,-nay, the masterly group of Agamemnon, Nestor, and Ulysses, and still more in advance, that of Achilles, Ajax, and Thersites, so manifestly occupy the foreground, that the subservience and vassalage of strength and animal courage to intellect and policy seems to be the lesson most often in our Poet's view, and which he has taken little pains to connect with the former more interesting moral impersonated in the titu. lar hero and heroine of the drama. But I am half inclined to believe, that Shakespeare's main object, or shall I rather say, his ruling impulse, was to translate the poetic heroes of paganism into the not less rude, but more intellectually vigorous, and more featurely, warriors of Christian chivalry,-and to substantiate the distinct and graceful profiles or outlines of the Homeric epic into the flesh and blood of the romantic drama,— in short, to give a grand history-piece in the robust style of Albert Durer. "The character of Thersites, in particular, well deserves a more careful examination, as the Caliban of demagogic life; the admirable portrait of intellectual power deserted by all grace, all moral principle, all not momentary impulse; just wise enough to detect the weak head, and fool enough to provoke the armed fist of his betters;-one whom malcontent Achilles can inveigle from malcontent Ajax, under the one condition. that he shall be called on to do nothing but abuse and slander, and that he shall be allowed to abuse as much and as purulently as he likes, that is, as he can;-in short, a mule,-quarrelsome by the original discord of his nature,-a slave by tenure of his own baseness,made to bray and be brayed at, to despise and be despicable. Aye, sir, but say what you will, he is a very clever fellow, though the best friends will fall out. There was a time when Ajax thought he deserved to have a statue of gold erected to him, and handsome Achilles, at the head of the Myrmidons, gave no little credit to his friend Thersites!"-COLERIDGE. WILLIAM GODWIN, in his "Life of Chaucer," thus compares the management of the same subject by the two great masters of English poetry:— "Since two of the greatest writers this island has produced have treated the same story, each in his own peculiar manner, it may be neither uuentertaining nor uninstructive to consider the merit of their respective modes of composition as illustrated in the present example. Chaucer's poem includes many beauties, many genuine touches of nature, and many strokes of an exquisite pathos. It is on the whole however written in that style which has unfortunately been so long imposed upon the world as dignified, classical and chaste. It is naked of incidents, of ornament, of whatever should most awaken the imagination, astound the fancy, or hurry|| away the soul. It has the stately march of a Dutch burgomaster as he appears in a procession, or a French poet as he shows himself in his works. It reminds one too forcibly of a tragedy of Racine. Every thing partakes of the author, as if he thought he should be everlastingly disgraced by becoming natural, inartificial and alive. We travel through a work of this sort as we travel over some of the immense downs with which our island is interspersed. All is smooth, or undulates with so gentle and slow a variation as scarcely to be adverted to by the sense. But all is homogeneous and tiresome; the mind sinks into a state of aching torpidity; and we feel as if we should never get to the end of our eternal journey. What a contrast to a journey among mountains and vallies, spotted with herds of various kinds of cattle, interspersed with villages, opening ever and anon to a view of the distant ocean, and refreshed with rivulets and streams; where if the eye is ever fatigued, it is only with the boundless flood of beauty which is incessantly pouring upon it! Such is the tragedy of Shake speare. "The historical play of TROILUS AND CRESSIDA exhibits as full a specimen of the different styles in which this wonderful writer was qualified to excel, as is to be found in any of his works. A more poetical passage, if poetry consists in sublime picturesque and beautiful imagery, neither ancient nor modern times have produced, than the exhortation addressed by Patroclus to Achilles, to persuade him to shake off his passion for Polyxena, the daughter of Priam, and resume the terrors of his military greatness. Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid Be shook to air.-(Act iii. Scene 3.) "Never did morality hold a language more profound, persuasive and irresistible, than in Shakespeare's Ulysses, who in the same scene, and engaged in the same cause with Patroclus, thus expostulates with the champion of the Grecian forces. For emulation hath a thousand sons, O, let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was! For beauty, wit, high birth, desert in service, To envious and calumniating time. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,- More praise than they will give to gold o'erdusted. The cry went once on thee, And still it might, and yet it may again, "But the great beauty of this play, as it is of all the genuine writings of Shakespeare, beyond all didactic morality, beyond all mere flights of fancy, and beyond all sublime, a beauty entirely his own, and in which no writer ancient or modern can enter into competition with him, is that his men are men; his sentiments are living, and his characters marked with those delicate, evanescent, undefinable touches, which identify them with the great delineation of nature. The speech of Ulysses just quoted, when taken by itself, is purely an exquisite specimen of didactic morality; but when combined with the explanation given by Ulysses, before the entrance of Achilles, of the nature of his design, it becomes the attribute of a real man, and starts into life. "When we compare the plausible and seemingly af fectionate manner in which Ulysses addresses himself to Achilles, with the key which he here furnishes to his meaning, and especially with the ephitet derision,' we have a perfect elucidation of his character, and must allow that it is impossible to exhibit the crafty and smooth-tongued politician in a more exact or animated style. The advice given by Ulysses is in its nature sound and excellent, and in its form inoffensive and kind; the name therefore of derision' which he gives to it, marks to a wonderful degree the cold and selfcentered subtlety of his character. "Cressida's confession to Troilus of her love is a most beautiful example of the genuine Shakespearian manner. What charming ingenuousness, what exquisite naiveté, what ravishing confusion of soul, are expressed in these words! We seem to perceive in them every fleeting thought as it rises in the mind of Cressida, at the same time that they delmeate with equal skill all the beautiful timidity and innocent artifice which grace and consummate the feminine character. Other writers endeavour to conjure up before them their imaginary personages, and seek with violent effort to arrest and describe what their fancy presents to them: Shakespeare alone (though not without many exceptions to this happiness) appears to have the whole train of his characters in voluntary attendance upon him, to listen to their effusions, and to commit to writing all the words, and the very words, they utter. "The whole catalogue of the dramatis persone in the play of TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, so far as they depend upon a rich and original vein of humour in the author, are drawn with a felicity which never was surpassed. The genius of Homer has been a topic of admiration to almost every generation of men since the period in which he wrote. But his characters will not bear the slightest comparison with the delineation of the same characters as they stand in Shakespeare. This is a species of honour which ought by no means to be forgotten when we are making the eulogium of our immortal bard, a sort of illustration of his greatness which cannot fail to place it in a very conspicuous light. The dispositions of men perhaps had not been sufficiently unfolded in the very early period of intellectual refinement when Homer wrote; the rays of humour had not been dissected by the glass, or rendered perdurable by the pencil, of the poet. Homer's characters are drawn with a laudable portion of variety and consistency; but his Achilles, his Ajax and his Nestor are, each of them, rather a species than an individual, and can boast more of the propriety of abstraction, than of the vivacity of a moving scene of absolute life. The Achilles, the Ajax, and the various Grecian heroes of Shakespeare on the other hand, are absolute men, deficient in nothing which can tend to individualise them, and already touched with the Promethean fire that might infuse a soul into what, without it, were lifeless form. From the rest perhaps the character of Thersites deserves to be selected (how cold and school-boy a sketch in Homer!) as exhibiting an appropriate vein of sarcastic humour amidst his cowardice, and a profoundness and truth in his mode of laying open the foibles of those about him, impossible to be excelled. "Before we quit this branch of Shakespeare's praise, it may not be unworthy of our attention to advert to one of the methods by which he has attained this uncommon superiority. It has already been observed that one of the most formidable adversaries of true poetry, is an attribute which is generally miscalled dignity. Shakespeare possessed, no man in higher perfection, the true dignity and loftiness of the poetical afflatus, which he has displayed in many of the finest passages of his works with miraculous success. But he knew that no man ever was, or ever can be, always dignified. He knew that those subtler traits of character which identify a mau, are familiar and relaxed, pervaded with passion, and not played off with an eternal eye to decorum. In |