of a strolling actor, who performed sometimes in his own plays, and sometimes in those of other authors? Did they ever pronounce the name of Shakspeare, so barbarous to French ears? Did they ever suspect that there was around him a glory which would outlive their honours, their pomp, their rank? Yet the mountebank player, the representative of Hamlet's Ghost, was the great phantom, the shade of the middle age, who rose upon the world like the evening star, just at a moment when the middle age had sunk among the dead; that extraordinary interval which Dante opened, and which Shakspeare closed.* Whitelocke, a contemporary of Milton, speaking in his "Historical Sketch" of the author of "Paradise Lost," designates him as "a certain blind man, named Milton, Latin Secretary to the Parliament." Moliere, the player, acted his own Pourceaugnac, as Shakspeare, the buffoon, personated his own Falstaff. The author of the Tartuffe, the comrade of poor Mondorge, changed his illustrious name of Poquelin for the humble name of Molière, that he might not disgrace his father, the Upholsterer. *The great dramatist himself spelt his name Shakspeare. The orthography Shakespeare has been, however, very generally adopted. Avant qu'un peu de terre, obtenu par prière, Thus, the veiled travellers, who come from time to time, and seat themselves at our tables, are treated by us merely as common guests: we know not their immortal nature until the day of their disappearance. On quitting this world, they become transfigured, and say to us, as the messenger of heaven did to Tobias: "I am one of the seven, which go in and out before the glory of the Holy One.” These divinities, who are not recognised by mankind in their transitory passage through the world, are, nevertheless, recognizable to each other. Thus, Milton saw the glory of the Bard of Avon : What needs my Shakspeare, for his honor'd bones, The labour of an age in piled stones? Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid Under a starry-pointing pyramid ? Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou, in our wonder and astonishment, Hast built thyself a live-long monument. And, so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie, That Kings, for such a tomb, would wish to die. Michael Angelo, surveying the fate and the genius of Dante, exclaims : Pur fuss' io tal Per l'aspro esilio suo con sua virtute, Why have I not been such as he!....For his bitter exile, with his virtue, I would give all the enjoyments of the world." Tasso celebrated Camoens when the author of the Lusiad was yet almost unknown, and proclaimed his renown before his name was re-echoed by Fame, with her hundred tongues. Vasco * * Tant 'oltre stende il glorioso volo, buon Luigi Che i tuoi spalmati legni andar men lunge. · Vasco....Camoens has taken such a glorious flight, that - thy tarred ships have not been so far." Can any thing be more beautiful than this association of illustrious equals, revealing themselves one to another as it were by signs, exchanging salutations, and conversing together in a language intelligible to themselves alone? But what could Milton have thought of the prediction of good fortune to the Stuarts in the terrible drama of the Prince of Denmark? The apologist of the condemnation of Charles I. was well enabled to prove how greatly his Shakspeare was mistaken. He might have applied to England the words of Hamlet: Or ere the shoes were old, with which she followed the poor king's body. The prophecy has been retrenched. The Stuarts have been banished from Hamlet, as they have disappeared from the world. |