from him by two centuries of time — their writings being as remarkable for the limpidity and clearness of expression as his are occasionally for its complexity. It is not therefore to the remoteness of the period that we must ascribe this peculiarity. Indeed in this respect Shakspeare's language will present nearly as much difficulty to an English as to a foreign student. We must look for the cause of this in the enormously developed intellectual and imaginative faculty in the poet; leading him to make metaphor of the boldest kind the ordinary tissue of his style. The thoughts rise so fast under his pen, and successively generate others with such a portentous rapidity, that the reader requires almost as great an intellectual vivacity as the poet, in order to trace the leading idea through the labyrinth of subordinate illustration. In all figurative writing the metaphor, the image, is an ornament, something extraneous to the thought it is intended to illustrate, and may be detached from it, leaving the fundamental idea intact: in Shakspeare the metaphor is the very fabric of the thought itself and entirely inseparable from it. His diction may be compared to some elaborate monument of the finest Gothic architecture, in which the superficial glance loses itself in an inextricable maze of sculptural detail and fantastically fretted ornamentation, but where a close examination shows that every pinnacle, every buttress, every moulding is an essential member of the construction. This intimate union of the reason and the imagination is a peculiarity common to Shakspeare and Bacon, in whose writings the severest logic is expressed in the boldest metaphor, and the very titles of whose books and the very definitions of whose philosophical terms are frequently images of the most figurative character. There is assuredly no poet, ancient or modern, from whose writings may be extracted such a number of profound and yet practical observations applicable to the common affairs and interests of life; observations expressed with the simplicity of a casual remark, yet pregnant with the condensed wisdom of philosophy; exhibiting more than the acuteness of De Rochefoucauld, without his cynical contempt for humanity, and more than the practical good sense of Molière, with a far wider and more universal applicability. In the picturing of abnormal and supernatural states of existence, as in the delineation of every phase of mental derangement, or the sentiments and actions of fantastic and supernatural beings, Shakspeare exhibits the same coherency and consistency in the midst of what at first sight appears altogether to transcend ordinary experience. Every grade of folly, from the verge of idiotcy to the most fantastic eccentricity, every shade of moral perturbation, from the jealous fury of Othello to the frenzy of Lear or the not less touching madness of Ophelia, is represented in his plays with a fidelity so complete that the most experienced physiologists have affirmed that such intellectual disturbances may be studied in his pages with as much profit as in the actual patients of a madhouse.

§ 10. The non-dramatic works of Shakspeare consist of the two narrative poems, written in the then fashionable Italian stanza, entitled Venus and Adonis, and the Rape of Lucrece, the volume of beautiful Sonnets

whose internal signification has excited so much controversy, and a few lyrics, some of which appear to have good and others but indifferent claims to be attributed to the great poet. Venus and Adonis, which the author himself, in his dedication to the Earl of Southampton, calls "the first heir of his invention," was undoubtedly one of his earliest productions, and though the date of its composition is not precisely known, was possibly written by Shakspeare before he left Stratford, at all events at the very outset of his poetical career. It is stamped with the strongest marks of youthful genius, exhibiting all the flush and voluptuous glow of a fervent imagination. The story is the common mythological episode of the loves of Venus and the hunter; and both in its form and substance, it must be regarded as an original attempt at a new kind of poetry, in which the extraordinary success of Shakspeare afterwards induced a multitude of other poets to follow his example. It ran through an unusual number of editions in a very short time, and was indeed one of the most successful literary ventures of the age. In the rich and somewhat sensual love-scenes in this poem, in the frequent inimitable touches of description which give earnest of Shakspeare's miraculous power of painting external nature, and in the delicious but somewhat effeminate melody of the verse, we see all the marks of youth, but it is the youth of a Shakspeare. The Rape of Lucrece, though less popular than its predecessor, a circumstance which may be attributed to the repulsive nature of the subject, is yet a poem of very great merit. The Sonnets of Shakspeare possess a peculiar interest, not only from their intrinsic beauty, but from the circumstance of their evidently containing carefully veiled allusions to the personal feelings of their author, allusions which point to some deep disappointment in love and friendship suffered by the poet. They were first printed in 1609, though, from allusions found in contemporary writings, many of them were composed previously. They are one hundred and fifty-four in number, and some are evidently addressed to a person of the male sex, while others are as plainly intended for a woman. The poet bitterly complains of the treachery of the male, and the infidelity of the female object of his affection, while he speaks both of the one and of the other in the most ardent language of passionate yet melancholy devotion. Throughout the whole of these exquisite but painful compositions there runs a deep undercurrent of sorrow, self-discontent, and wounded affection, which bears every mark of being the expression of a real sentiment. No clew, however, has as yet been discovered by which we may hope to trace the persons to whom these poems are addressed, or the painful events to which they allude. The volume was dedicated, on its first appearance, by the publisher, Thomas Thorpe, to "Mr. W. H.," who is qualified as the only begetter of these sonnets; and some hypotheses suppose that this mysterious "Mr. W. H." was no other than William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, one of Shakspeare's most powerful patrons, and a man of great splendor and accomplishments. It is, however, difficult to suppose that a personage so highplaced could easily have interfered to destroy the happiness of the com

paratively humble player and poet of the Globe, or, if he had, that a bookseller would have ventured to allude to him under so familiar a designation as "W. H." In fact the whole production is shrouded in mystery; and we must content ourselves with admiring the deep tenderness, the melancholy grace, and the inimitable touches of poetical fancy and moral reflection which abound in these poems, without endeavoring to solve the enigma — unquestionably a painful and personal one-involved in the circumstances under which they were composed.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SHAKSPEARIAN DRAMATISTS.

§ 1. BEN JONSON. His life. § 2. His tragedies and comedies. § 3. His masques and other works. § 4. BEAUMONT and FLETCHER. § 5. MASSINGER. § 6. FORD. 7. WEBSTER. § 8. CHAPMAN, DEKKER, MIDDLETON, Marston, and other minor Dramatists. § 9. SHIRLEY. § 10. Remarks on the Elizabethan drama.

§ 1. THE age of Elizabeth and James I. produced a galaxy of great dramatic poets, the like of whom, whether we regard the nature or the degree of excellence exhibited in their works, the world has never seen. In the general style of their writings, they bear a strong family resemblance to Shakspeare; and indeed many of the peculiar merits of their great prototype may be found scattered among his various contemporaries, and in some instances carried to a height little inferior to that found in his writings. Thus intensity of pathos hardly less touching than that of Shakspeare may be found in the dramas of Ford, gallant animation and dignity in the dialogues of Beaumont and Fletcher, deep tragic emotion in the sombre scenes of Webster, noble moral elevation in the graceful plays of Massinger; but in Shakspeare, and in Shakspeare alone, do we see the consummate union of all the most opposite qualities of the poet, the observer, and the philosopher.

The name which stands next to that of Shakspeare in the list of these illustrious dramatists is that of BEN JONSON (1573-1637), a vigorous and solid genius, built high with learning and knowledge of life, and whose numerous works, dramatic as well as other, possess an imposing and somewhat monumental weight. He was born in 1573, and was consequently nine years younger than Shakspeare. His career was full of strange vicissitudes. Though compelled by a step-father to follow the humble trade of a bricklayer, he succeeded in gratifying an intense thirst for learning. He passed some short time, probably with the assistance of a patron, at the University of Cambridge, and there, as well as after leaving college, continued to study with a diligence that certainly rendered him one of the most learned men of his ageage fertile in learned men. He is known to have served some time as a soldier in the Low Countries, and to have distinguished himself by his courage in the field; but his theatrical career seems to have begun when he was about twenty years of age, when we find him attached as an actor to one of the minor theatres, called the Curtain. His success as a performer is said to have been very small, arising most probably from want of grace and beauty of person; and there is no reason to suppose that his theatrical career differed from the almost universal type of the actor-dramatists of that age. While still a very young

an

man he fought a duel with one of his fellow-actors, whom he had the misfortune to kill, receiving at the same time a severe wound; and for this infringement of the law, which at that particular period was punished with extreme severity, the poet was condemned to death, though afterwards pardoned. Among other vicissitudes of life, Jonson is related to have twice changed his religion, having been converted by a Jesuit to the Roman Catholic faith, and to have afterwards again returned to the bosom of his mother-Church, on which last occasion he is said, when receiving the Sacrament on his reconversion to have drunk out the whole chalice, in sign of the sincerity of his recantation.

His first dramatic work, the Comedy of Every Man in his Humor, is assigned to the year 1596. This piece, the action and characters of which were originally Italian, failed in its first representation; and there is a tradition, far from improbable in itself, that Shakspeare, who was then in the full blaze of his popularity, advised the young aspirant to make some changes in the piece and to transfer its action to England. Two years afterwards the comedy, with considerable alterations, was brought out a second time, at Shakspeare's theatre of the Globe, and then with triumphant success. One of the few parts which Shakspeare is known to have personated on the stage is that of Old Knowel, the jealous merchant, in this comedy. Thus was probably laid the foundation of that warm and solid friendship between Jonson and Shakspeare, which appears to have continued during their whole lives, and the existence of which is proved not only by many pleasant anecdotes recording the gay and witty social intercourse of the two great poets, but by the enthusiastic, and yet discriminating, eulogy in which Jonson —who was not a man to give light or unconsidered praise · has honored the memory and described the genius of his friend. From the moment of this second representation of his comedy Ben Jonson's literary reputation was established; and during the remainder of his very active career, though the success of particular pieces may have fluctuated, Jonson undoubtedly occupied a place at the very head of the dramatic authors of his day. His social and generous, though coarse and somewhat overbearing character, the extraordinary power and richness of his conversation, contributed to make him one of the most prominent figures in the literary society of that day. His "witcombats" at the famous taverns of the Mermaid, the Devil, and the Falcon, have been commemorated in many anecdotes; and he even appears to have been regarded at last as a sort of intellectual potentate, much as his great namesake Samuel Johnson was afterwards, and to have conferred upon his favorites the title of his sons; "sealing them," as he says in one of his epigrams, "of the tribe of Ben."

His first comedy was followed in the succeeding year by Every Man Out of his Humor, and his literary activity continued to be very great, for in 1603 he gave to the world his tragedy of Sejanus, and in 1605 he appears to have had some share, with Chapman, Marston, Dekker, and other dramatists, in the piece of Eastward Hoe! a comedy