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After the volumes which they have called forth,
it will not be expected that I should attempt any
minute criticism on the plays of Shakespeare.
Never has his excellence, as a writer for the stage,
been so thoroughly understood, or so universally
acknowledged, as during the nineteenth century.
Now even foreign readers justly appreciate those
wonderful dramas, which exhibit with perfect
truth whatever is most terrible, most piteous, most
romantic, or most laughable, in the scenes of
many-coloured life, each nice variety of human
character, each delicate shade of human feeling;
-which present to us pictures, strong as realities,
from the realms of spirits, and from fairy-land;-
which in deep reflexion and in useful maxims
yield nothing to the pages of the philosophers;—
and which glow with all the poetic beauty that
an exhaustless fancy could shower upon them.
Nor let it be forgotten, that in all probability,
our author composed those dramas without an eye
to the admiration of posterity, and that, after they
had served his immediate purposes, he let them
drop from him with indifference, as the tree gives
its blossoms to the wind. Of all the poets, born
in various climes, in earlier or in later days, how
many have possessed such creative minds, as en-
title them to occupy with Shakespeare that
highest station in "Fame's proud temple," to

D'Avenant's vanity, who was willing to be thought the son
of Shakespeare, even at the expense of his mother's reputa-
tion the latter reads very like a mere invention.

Strates frears had in view the perfection of portic

art

which his plays have raised him? Perhaps, three only; the ancient bard, who told the tale of Troy, the Florentine, who saw the vision of the infernal world, and he, whose "great argument" was the loss of Eden.

In various publications are to be found essays on the old English theatre, the writers of which seem desirous of impressing their readers with an idea that his dramatic contemporaries were but little inferior to the mighty poet himself. For my own part, I must be allowed to say, that a careful perusal of every existing drama of the reigns of Elizabeth and James, has thoroughly convinced me of the immeasurable superiority of Shakespeare to all the play-wrights of his time. I am not, I trust, insensible to the invention and power displayed by Fletcher, Jonson, Ford, Webster, Massinger, Dekker, Tourneur, Heywood, Chapman, Middleton, and the rest of that illustrious brotherhood; but I feel that over the worst of Shakespeare's dramas, his genius has diffused a peculiar charm, of which their best productions are entirely destitute; and to insinuate that any of his contemporaries ever produced a play worthy of being ranked with his happiest efforts,-with Othello for instance, Macbeth, Lear, or Hamlet,—seems to me an absurdity almost unpardonable in any critic.89

89 Weber in the Introduction to his edition of Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, expressly tells us, that Philaster " pos

Though Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, and the Sonnets of Shakespeare have been cast into the shade by his dramas, and are familiar to few readers, they nevertheless deserve to be numbered among the finest compositions of the golden age of our literature.

Both Venus and Adonis, and The Rape of Lucrece, abound in elaborate descriptions, as vivid as language has ever conveyed, in striking thoughts, expressed with uncommon terseness, and in similes of perfect originality; while both, in accordance with the taste of the period at which they were written, are occasionally soiled by quaintness and conceit. It is to be regretted, that, for the sake of affording a contrast to the coldness of Adonis, Shakespeare should have so over-painted the passion of the Goddess, as to render several portions of the former production equally offensive to decency and good taste. The "first heir of his invention," (as he terms Venus and Adonis) appears to me, however, more full of the ethereal spirit of poesy than The Rape of Lucrece; though it wants the pathos, the energy, and the moral grandeur, of that painful tale.

In order to show what progress had been made by Englishmen in the cultivation of the Sonnet, before it engaged the pen of Shakespeare, I shall now proceed to extract some pieces from different

sesses excellencies little inferior" to those of Macbeth and Lear, p. xiv.

writers, who had attempted it anterior to the year 1609.72

Among the Songes and Sonnettes, 1557, of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, is this pleasing Description of Spring, wherein each thing renews, save only the Lover:

"The soote 73 season, that bud and bloom forth brings,
With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale ;
The nightingale with feathers new she sings;
The turtle to her make 74 hath told her tale.
Summer is come, for every spray now springs ;
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale;
The buck in brake his winter coat he flings;
The fishes flete with new repaired scale;
The adder all her slough away she flings;
The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale;
The busy bee her honey now she mings;75
Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale.
And thus I see, among these pleasant things,
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs!

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It is well known that Steevens pronounced Thomas Watson to be "a more elegant Sonnetteer than Shakespeare:" the following effusion (which is a fair specimen of Watson's talents) from the EKATOMIIA÷IA, or Passionate Centurie of Love, printed without date, but entered on the Stationers' Books, 1581, will show how preposterous was the decision of the commentator; who, after all, perhaps, did not declare his 72 It has been already mentioned that though Shakespeare's Sonnets were not published till 1609, some of them were written as early as 1598: see p. xlviii.

73 Sweet.

74 Mate.

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75 Mingles.

real opinion on the subject, as sincerity was not among his virtues :

"When May is in his prime, and youthful Spring 76 Doth clothe the tree with leaves, and ground with flowers, And time of year reviveth every thing,

And lovely nature smiles, and nothing lours;
Then Philomela most doth strain her breast,
With night-complaints, and sits in little rest.
The bird's estate I may compare with mine,
To whom fond love doth work such wrongs by day,
That in the night my heart must needs repine,
And storm with sighs, to ease me as I may,
Whilst others are becalm'd, or lie them still,
Or sail secure, with tide and wind at will.
And as all those which hear this bird complain,
Conceive in all her tunes a sweet delight,
Without remorse, or pitying her pain;
So she, for whom I wail both day and night,
Doth sport herself in hearing my complaint:
A just reward for serving such a saint!"

A Vision upon this conceipt of the Faery Queen, attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh, is appended to the three first books of Spenser's great poem, which were printed in 1590:

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Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay,
Within that temple where the vestal flame
Was wont to burn; and passing by that way,
To see that buried dust of living fame,
Whose tomb fair Love and fairer Virtue kept;
All suddenly I saw the Faery Queen :

76 Watson's Sonnets all consist of eighteen, instead of fourteen, lines.

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