WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE,

BORN, 1564; DIED, 1616.

It is a singular fact, that, though Shakspeare appears to have been scarcely less appreciated by the great contemporaries who, with him, constitute the chief stars in the Elizabethan era of literature, than he has been by every succeeding age, the materials for his biography are of the most meagre and scanty description. His father, though claiming descent from a respectable line of English yeomanry, appears to have been a plain grazier and wooldealer at Stratford-on-Avon, which his great son has rendered so world-famous to all time. What little we do know of Shakspeare is satisfactory. His father, though in a humble sphere, was neither poor nor straitened in circumstances, and we may presume that the boyhood of the great poet passed pleasantly in the kindly duties and healthful recreations of rural life. In 1582, he married Anne Hathaway, when only eighteen years of age, and soon after he incurred the wrath of Sir Thomas Lucy, a neighbouring justice, by not only shooting his deer, but following up the misdeed by lampooning this "Justice Shallow" in a satirical ballad, which he affixed to his park gate. The consequence of this youthful imprudence was his hasty removal to London, where his first occupation is believed to have been the very humble one of a prompter's call-boy. That Shakspeare, however, was no wild or dissipated poacher, is sufficiently shown by his after career. He appears, from all we learn of him, to have been a man of shrewd worldly sagacity, who, if born in a higher rank, would have become a great statesman, and ruled the destinies of nations instead of depicting

their historic incidents for the mimicry of the stage. From his first humble position he rose by sheer dint of genius, combined with wise prudence and self-control, to be an actor, and then proprietor and manager, of the Globe Theatre. From this, our great dramatist retired with a fortune equal to about £800 or £900 a-year, and, returning to his native town of Stratford-on-Avon, he passed the remainder of his life in the enjoyment of the ease and comfort which he had so honourably secured for himself.

The poet died on his birth-day, April 23, 1616, having then completed his fifty-second year, and was interred in the chancel of the beautiful parish church on the banks of the Avon, whither pilgrims from every part of the world have since flocked to gaze with interest on the hallowed spot. It may be said, with the strictest justice, to be impossible to form too high an estimate of Shakspeare, or to place too great a value on the influence which he has exercised on the literature, and the moral and intellectual character, of this country in every succeeding age. He lived in an era of great intellects, and was surrounded by contemporaries far before him in the advantages which depend on education and worldly position, and possessed of genius such as would have seemed pre-eminent in almost every other age or country; but the greatest of them appears mean alongside of Shakspeare. "To me," says the great German critic, Schlegel, "Shakspeare appears a profound artist, and not a blind and wildly luxuriant genius. In such poets as are usually considered careless pupils of nature, I have always found, on a closer examination, when they have produced works of real excellence, a distinguished cultivation of the mental powers, practice in art, and views worthy in themselves,

and maturely considered. That idea of poetic inspiration, as if poets were not in their senses, but like the Pythia, when possessed by the divinity, delivered oracles unintelligible to themselves, is least of all applicable to dramatic composition-one of the productions of the human mind which requires the greatest exercise of thought. It is universally admitted that Shakspeare reflected, and deeply reflected, on character and passion, on the progress of events and human destinies, on the human constitution, on all the things and relations of this world. Shakspeare's knowledge of mankind has become proverbial; in this his superiority is so great, that he has justly been called the master of the human heart. Never, perhaps, was so comprehensive a talent for characterization possessed by any other man." Coleridge, with like high sense of the great poet's pre-eminent worth, declares that a life's study, instead of enabling him to exhaust the intellectual treasures of his works, only taught him to discover new and unexpected beauties. He further adds: "After thirty years of unintermitting and not fruitless study, of the Greek, Latin, English, Italian, Spanish, and German belles lettres, and the last fifteen years, in addition, employed far more intensely in the analysis of the laws of life and reason, as they exist in man; upon every step I have made forward in taste, in acquisition of facts from history or my own observation, and in knowledge of the different laws of being,-at every new accession of information-after every successful exercise of meditation, and every fresh presentation of experience, I have unfailingly discovered a proportionate increase of wisdom and intuition in Shakspeare." It would be easy to multiply quotations such as these, to show how universally the great men of later ages have acknowledged the pre

eminent power of genius which the writings of Shakspeare display. It may, indeed, be almost employed as a test of the intellectual powers of others; for in proportion as the poet or critic's own genius excels, in like degree does he surpass others in his appreciation of the world-poet, the "thousand-souled Shakspeare." He is the greatest genius of perhaps the very greatest of all those remarkable periods which are observed to recur at distant intervals in the history of our race, when the human mind makes abrupt and gigantic strides, as if suddenly awakening from a long sleep, in which its strength had been passively maturing for the effort. The age of Elizabeth we have already referred to as such an epoch. In it genius displayed itself in many ways, and in all of them men of a ripe and rare standard of excellence arose to set an example to all times. In an especial manner it was the epoch of English dramatic poetry; and beginning as it did during the reign of that Queen, in the purest infantile efforts of the English stage, it had attained to such a mastery before her death, that the greatest and best of our succeeding dramatists can be regarded as little else than the more successful imitators of the Elizabethan dramatists. Of those who, with Shakspeare, constituted this wonderful galaxy of genius—

"Those shining stars that run

Their glorious course round Shakspeare's golden sun,"

a very brief summary must suffice here; though the distinction to which their genius entitles them well merits all the admiration which their works have ever since continued to command.

The great dramatic poets who rank as the contemporaries and competitors of Shakspeare are, Ben Johnson,

Beaumont, Fletcher, and Massinger. Their circumstances in life greatly differed, and each of them manifested, as a writer, peculiarities of his, though in the case of two of them-Beaumont and Fletcher-we have the remarkable example of men of independent genius labouring together with so much unity of purpose, and so total an absence of jealousy or personal ambition, that critics have since in vain tried, either from external or internal evidence, to discriminate between the several parts of their conjoint productions.

Ten years after the birth of Shakspeare, while the boy was still by the banks of the Avon, sporting in happy thoughtlessness of the great future which lay before him, BEN JONSON was born at Westminster, about a month after the death of his father, a clergyman, who had been a sufferer on account of his opinions. The career of this poet was a singular one. He was placed at a grammar school in Westminster, and early showed signs of the great talent which he possessed; but his mother having married a bricklayer, he was taken by his stepfather from school to assist him in his humble vocation. Both his application and his acquirements as a student must have been great, as we learn from one of his biographers, that Sir Walter Raleigh, having heard with regret of a lad of genius being forced to practise such humble mechanical toil, evinced a great interest in him, and sent him, in company with his son, to the continent as a tutor or travelling companion. His temper, which was quick and fiery, was not well suited for such a post; and finding its duties alike repugnant to his taste and feelings, he entered the military service as a volunteer, and fought against the Spaniards in the Netherlands. He is reputed to have displayed great bravery during his brief military career, and on one occa