"Who'll put a girdle round about the earth or Titania "Upon the beached margin of the sea, Dancing her ringlets to the whistling wind:" or the Witches, who "Hover through the fog and filthy air:" or the Ghost "Whose grim portentous figure Walks armëd through the night: 99 all these conceptions are as masterly and true as the mind of poet ever conceived: and place Shakspere at once in the very highest rank as an imaginative writer. And whilst Shakspere's imagination is as high as Milton's, it is much wider. His "Poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Glances from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;" and embraces the whole universe. I hold, therefore, that Shakspere's imagination is at least equal, and possibly superior, to Milton's. FOURTH SPEAKER. - Sir, It is said that Milton's imaginative power, if as great, is not so grasping and universal, as Shakspere's: I do not admit this: for granting that his creative power is but rarely applied to Shakspere's great domain, the human heart, it, on the other hand, ascends to other subjects which even Shakspere never reached. 66 Winged with his angelic power, Milton swept through the realms of time and space; veiled his face before the throne of God, or stood in the council of Pandemonium; floated in chaos, or walked with Adam in Paradise." I say again, Shakspere never rose so high as this. But the opener truly told us that we were not to judge by one quality alone: let us look at some of the other distinguishing characteristics, then, of these two great writers. Milton's exquisite style and fine power of description ought not to be forgotten: here, I think, he more than rivals Shakspere. Mark the beauty of this: "Now morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime Equally fine is his description of Adam: "His fair large front and eye sublime declared Round from his parted forelock manly hung Nor let us pass without notice Milton's power over the feelings. In Paradise Lost there are touches of pathos never surpassed. I would instance particularly Eve's penitent reply to Adam's upbraidings, when she "with tears that ceased not flowing, And tresses all disorder'd, at his feet Fell humble; and embracing them, besought Mark also Satan's attempt to address the legions of Hell: "Thrice he assay'd, and thrice, in spite of scorn, Comment this fine FIFTH SPEAKER.-I am of opinion that in the chief poetical quality, Imagination, the two poets before us are equally great. Milton has risen higher than Shakspere: Shakspere has flown wider than Milton. Milton could well have been more universal: Shakspere could not with perfect ease have been loftier. But as to the other qualities which constitute a poet, I think that Shakspere was decidedly the more highly gifted. The last speaker has instanced the descriptive power and the pathos of Milton but it seems to me that in both these faculties Shakspere is the greater of the two. There is nothing in Milton to compare for a moment with the living beauty of that line spoken by Lorenzo : "How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank." This is, in my opinion, the most perfect picture ever presented in words. In Shakspere's Works, as Hazlitt says, there is "such force and distinct ness of description, that a word, an epithet, paints a whole scene, or throws us back whole years in the history of the person represented." And as to pathos, I think that our friend was exceedingly unwise to challenge the comparison. I grant the great beauty of the instances presented to us: but I find greater beauty by far in the pathos of Shakspere. I point to Lear's recognition of Cordelia in his madness, with her reply to Macduff's grief at the slaughter of his children to Ophelia's pathetic lamentations for her father, and her death: to the wild agony of the bereaved Constance: to the simple remonstrances of Desdemona on her death-bed: to Antony's burst of passionate grief over the body of Cæsar and to Othello's intense and heartbroken misery when he is made to believe that his wife is false to him. Any one of these instances is to my mind quite sufficient to establish the superiority of the pathos of Shakspere over that of Milton. SIXTH SPEAKER.-Sir, A very important test by which this question may be fairly tried has not yet been alluded to; and by your permission I will here set it up: I mean the moral effect these writers have produced upon the world. This will be a fair gauge of their respective powers; for effects are always the measures of their causes. H Now it seems to me that Shakspere has done more service to humanity than any other writer ever born into the world. Through the whole natural and mental universe his spirit has ranged: and whatever it has touched it has illuminated. He has shown "Virtue her own feature, and Scorn her own image:" he has reached "Imagination's airy height;" sounded the lowest depths of Passion, trodden every path of life, and acquainted us with every kind of human experience. There seems not a thought, not a pang, not a pleasure, not a sentiment, not a truth connected with humanity that Shakspere has not felt and spoken. He has illuminated for us the whole Past: he "has turned the globe round, and surveyed the generations of men and the individuals as they passed, with their different concerns, passions, follies, vices, actions, and motives;" he has left us pictures of undying beauty, to elevate, refine, and refresh us; he has handed down to us a nobler monument of wisdom than is to be found in the works of all our philosophers; and he has erected for us a code of truth and morals which surpasses all that the world's statesmen have ever given us. How can we calculate the effect of such a soul upon the world? None but a spirit similarly gifted could hope to show how, through its subtle |