not what they do. great, The boy Tell was sense sense, his blemishes beauties, and his worst puns fine wit! "Nor knew how great he was." The subtlety of Shakspere is one of his I mention next his humanity. It was most wonderful qualities. Coleridge used said of Burns, that if you had touched to say, that he was more of a philosopher his hand it would have burned yours. than a poet. His penetration into moAnd although Shakspere, being a far tives, his discernment of the most secret broader and greater, was, consequently, a thoughts and intents of the heart, his calmer man, yet I would not have ad- discrimination of the delicate shades of vised any very timid person to have made character, the manner in which he makes the same experiment with him. Poor little traits tell large tales, the complete Hartley Coleridge wrote a clever paper, grasp he has of all his characters, whom in "Blackwood," entitled "Shakspere a he lifts up and down like counters, the Tory and a Gentleman;" I wish some one innumerable paths by which he reaches had answered it, under the title "Shak- similar results, the broad, comprehensive spere a Radical and a Man." A man's maxims on life, manners, and morals, heart beats in his every line. He loves, which he has scattered in such profusion pities, feels for, as well as with, the over his writings, the fact, that he never meanest of his fellow "human mortals." repeats a thought, figure, or allusion, the He addresses men as brothers, and as bro-wonderful art he has of identifying himthers have they responded to his voice. self with all varieties of humanity-all I need scarcely speak of his simplicity. proclaim the inexhaustible and infinite He was a child as well as a man. His subtlety of his genius, and, when taken poetry, in the language of Pitt, comes in connection with its power and loftiness, "sweetly from nature." It is a "gum" render him the prodigy of poets and of oozing out without effort or consciousness: men. I once, when a student, projected occasionally, indeed (for I do not, like the a series of essays, entitled "Sermons on Germans, believe in the infallibility of Shakspere," taking for my text some of Shakspere), he condescends to indite a those profound and far-reaching sentences certain swelling, rumbling bombast, espe- which abound in him, where you have cially when he is speaking through the the fine gold, which is the staple of his mouth of kings; but even his bombast works, collected in thick little knots or comes rolling out with an ease and a gusto, nuggets. It was this quality in him a pomp and a prodigality, which are which made a French author say, that, quite delightful! Shakspere's nonsense were she condemned to select three is like no other body's nonsense. It is volumes for her whole library, the three always the nonsense of a great genius. would be, Bacon's Essays, the Bible, and A dignitary of the Church of England Shakspere. You can never open a page went once to hear Robert Hall. After of his dramas without being startled at the listening with delight to that celebrated multitude of sentences which have been, preacher, he called at his house. He found him lying on the floor, with his children performing somersets over him. He lifted up his hands in wonder, and exclaimed, "Is that the great Robert When I name purity as another quality Hall?"-"Oh," replied Hall, "I have all of this poet, I may be thought paradoxmy nonsense out of the pulpit, you have ical. And yet, when I remember his all yours in it." So Shakspere, after period, his circumstances, the polluted having done a giant's work, could take a atmosphere which he breathed; when I giant's recreation; and were he returning compare his writings with those of conto earth, would nearly laugh himself temporary dramatists; when I weigh him dead again, at the portentous attempts in the scales with many of our modern of some of his critics to prove his non- authors; and when I remember that his and are perpetually being, quoted. The proverbs of Shakspere, were they selected, would be only inferior to the proverbs of Solomon. writings never seek to corrupt the ima- Shakspere's wit and humour are bound gination, to shake the principles, or to together in general by the amiable band influence the passions of men, I marvel of good-nature. What a contrast to how thoroughly his genius has saved him Swift! He loathes; Shakspere, at the harmless, amid formidable difficulties, and worst, hates. His is the slavering and say, that Marina, in his own "Pericles," ferocious ire of a maniac; Shakspere's, did not come forth more triumphantly that of a man. Swift broods like their scaithless, than does her poet. Let those shadow over the festering sores and the who prate of Shakspere's impurity first of moral ulcers of humanity; Shakspere all read him candidly; secondly, read, if touches them with a ray of poetry, they can, Massinger, or Beaumont and which beautifies, if it cannot heal. "GulFletcher; and, thirdly, if they have Bowd- liver" is the journal of a fiend; "Timon" ler's contemptible "Family Shakspere," is the magnificent outbreak of an injured fling it into the fire, and take back the angel. His wit, how fertile, quick, forunmutilated copy to their book-shelves getive! Congreve and Sheridan are poor and their bosoms. The moonlight is not and forced in the comparison. How long contaminated by shining on a dunghill, they used to sit hatching some clever conand neither is the genius of Shakspere ceit; and what a cackling they made when by touching transiently, on its way to it had chipped the shell! Shakspere higher regions, upon low, loathsome, or threw forth a Mercutio or a Falstaff at uncertain themes. His language is some- once, each embodying in himself a world times coarse, being that of his age; his of laughter, and there an end. spirit, belonging to no age (would I could humour, how broad, rich, subtle, powersay the same of Burns, Byron, Moore, ful, and full of genius and geniality, it is! and Eugene Sue), is always clean, healthy, Why, Bardolph's red nose eclipses all and beautiful. the humorous characters that have succeeded on the stage. Ancient Pistol himself shoots down the whole of the Farquhars, Wycherleys, Sheridans, Goldsmiths, and Colmans, put together. Dogberry is the prince of Donkeys, past, present, and to come. When shall we ever have such another tinker as Christopher Sly! Sir Andrew Aguecheek! the very name makes you TREMBLE with laughter. And like a vast sirloin of English roast beef, rich and dripping, lies along the mighty Falstaff, with humour oozing out of every corner and cranny of his vast corporation. His His imagination and fancy are nearly equal, and, like two currents of air, are constantly interpenetrating. They seem twins the one male, the other female. Not only do both stand ever ready to minister to the subtlest and deepest motions of his intellect, and all the exigencies of his plots (like spray, which decorates the river, when running in the shade; as well as when shining in the sunlight), but he has, besides, committed himself to several distinct trials of the strength of both. The caldron in "Macbeth" stands up an unparalleled collection of dark and powerful images, all shining Byron describes man as a pendulum, as if shown in bell-fire, and accompanied between a smile and tear. Shakspere, by a dancing, mirthful measure, which the representative of humanity, must adds unspeakably to their horrror. It is weep as well as laugh, and his tears, as though a sentence of death were given characteristically, must be large and coforth in doggerel. And, for light and fan- pious. What variety, as well as force, ciful figures, we may take either Titania's in his pathetic figures! Here pines in speech to the Fairies, or the far-famed de- the centre of the forest the melancholy scription of Queen Mab by Mercutio. In Jacques, musing tenderly upon the sad these passages, artistic aim is for a season pageant of human life, finding sermons abandoned. A single faculty, like a horse in stones, although not "good in everyfrom a chariot stud, breaks loose, and re-thing," now weeping beside a weeping vels and riots in the fury of its power. deer, and now bursting out into elfish laughter at the "fool" he found in the create their true criticism (for it is the forest. Here walks and talks, in her office of the critic to find out and exguilty and desperate sleep, the Fiend pound the elements which mingled in the Queen of Scotland, lighted on her way original inspiration-not to test them by by the fire that never shall be quenched, a preconceived and arbitrary standard), which is already kindled around her, and when, especially, you remember the seeking in vain to sweeten her "little" object contemplated by the poet, that of hand, on which there is a spot with mirroring the motley life of man, his which eternity must deal, and yet mov-works appear as wonderful in execution ing you to weep for her as you tremble. as in conception. Their very faults are Here turns away from men for ever the needed to prove them human, otherwise haughty Timon, seeking his low grave their excellences would have classed them beside, and his only mourner in, the with the divine. everlasting brine of the sea. Here It is amusing to read the criticism the noble Othello, mad with imaginary which the eighteenth century passed upon wrongs, bends over the bed of Desde- Shakspere. They did not, in fact, know mona, and kisses ere he kills the purest very well what to make of him. They and best of women. Here Juliet awakes walked and talked "about him, and about too late from her fatal sleep, and finds a him." I am reminded of the astonishdead lover where she had hoped to find a ment felt by the inhabitants of Lilliput living husband. Here poor Ophelia, gar- at the discovery of Gulliver, the "Man landed with flowers, sinks into her pool Mountain." One critic mounted on a of death-a pool which might again and ladder to get a nearer view of the phenoagain have been replenished from the menon. Another peered at him through tears which her story has started. And a telescope. A third insisted on straphere, once King of England, but now ping him down by the ligatures of art. king of the miserable in every clime-A fourth measured his size geometrically. once wise in everything but love, now But all agreed, that, although much sublime in madness once wearing a larger, he was much coarser and uglier royal coronet, now crowned with the than themselves; and expressed keen rehowling blackness of heaven above his grey dishevelled locks-once clad in purple, now wreathing around him fantastic wreaths of flowers-it is Lear who cries aloud "Ye heavens! If ye do love old men, if your sweet sway gret that so much strength was not united with more symmetry. He seemed to them a monster, not a man. Voltaire, with the dauntless effrontery of a monkey, called him an enormous dunghill, with a few pearls scattered upon it-unconsciously thereby re-enacting the part of Dogberry, and degrading from the monkey into the ass. In our day all this is changed. Shakspere no more seems a large lucky barbarian, with wondrous powers growing wild and straggling, but a wise man, wisely managing the most magnificent gifts. His art-whether you regard it as moulding his individual periods, or as regulating his plays-seems quite as wonderful That Shakspere is the greatest genius the world ever saw, is acknowledged now by all sane men; for even France has, at last, after many a reluctant struggle, fallen into the procession of his admirers. But that Shakspere also is out of all sight and measure the finest artist that ever constructed a poem or drama, is a less as his genius. Men criticise now even general, and yet a growing belief. By no mechanical rules, indeed, can his works be squared. But tried, as all great works should be, by principles of their own principles which afterwards control and the successful battles of Napoleon, and seek very learnedly to show that he ought not to have gained them, and that by all the rules of war it was very ridiculous in him to gain them! But Shakspere's great victories can stand every test, and are seen | mingling, interweaving." But I have not only to be triumphs of overwhelming thus arranged them according to the genius, but of consummate skill. master element and purpose of each. Ere glancing at his plays individually, Let me select one of the different I would, first of all, try to divide them classes for rapid analysis. And I feel under various classes. The division which myself, first of all, attracted toward the occurs to me as the best, is that of his wierd and haggard tragedy of "Macmetaphysical, his imaginative, his medi- beth." And, first, in this play we must tative, his passionate, his historical, and notice again its metaphysical character. his comic dramas. His metaphysical plays A nightmare from hell presses down all are, properly speaking, only two-"Mac- the story and all the characters. From beth" and "King Lear." I call them metaphysical, not in the common sense, but in Shakspere's own sense of the word. Lady Macbeth says "Hie thee hither, That I may pour my spirits in thine ear: the commencement of the race to its close, there is a fiend-the fiend sitting behind the rider, and at every turn of the dark descending way you hear his suppressed or his resounding laughter. All is out of nature. The ground reels below you. The play is a caldron, mixed of such ingredients as the Wierd Sisters, a blasted heath, an air-drawn dagger, the blood-boltered ghost of a Metaphysics means here an agency be- murdered man rising to sup with his yond nature, and at the same time evil. murderer, lamentings heard in the air, Now, in "Macbeth," it is this metaphy- strange screams of death, horses running sical power which, through the witches, wild and eating each other, a desperate controls like destiny the whole progress king asking counsel at the pit of Acheron, of the play. In "Lear," not only does an armed head, a bloody child, a child destiny brood over the whole, but the crowned and with a tree in his hand, hell-dog of madness-which in Shakspere and eight kings rising from the abyss to is metaphysical power-is let loose. In answer his questions, a moving forest, a some other plays, it is true, he introduces sleep-walking and suicide queen—such superhuman agents, but in these two are some of the ingredients which a alone all the springs seem moved by a cloudy hand seems to shed into the dark unearthly power. By his imagina- broth, till it bubbles over with terror tive plays, I mean those where his prin- and blood. It is not a tragedy, but a cipal object is to indulge that one stupen- collection of tragedies-the death of dous faculty of his. Such are the "Tem- Duncan being one, that of Banquo anpest" and the "Midsummer Night's other, that of Macduff's family another, Dream." These are selections from his that of Lady Macbeth another, and that dream-book. By his meditative plays, I of Macbeth himself a fifth. And yet the mean those in which incident, passion, master has so managed them, by varying and poetry are made subservient to the their character and circumstances, and workings of subtle and restless reflection. relieving them by touches of imaginaSuch are "Hamlet," "Timon," and "Mea- tion, that there is no repletion-we sure for Measure." His passionate plays "sup," but not "full," of horrors. By -for example, "Othello" and "Romeo his so potent art, he brings it about, and Juliet" are designed to paint, that his supernatural and human perwhether in simple or compound form, sons never jostle. You never wonder whether stationary, progressive, or inter- at finding them on the stage together; changing, the passions of humanity. His they meet without a start, they part historical and comic plays explain them- without a shiver; they obey one power, selves. All his plays, indeed, have more and you feel, that not only does one or less of all those qualities, "floating, touch of nature make the "whole world kin," but that it can link the uni- | his bosom, and in the progress of its verse in one brotherhood. It is the hu- growth makes him first a murderer, manity which bursts out of every corner and ultimately a desperate madman. and crevice of this drama, like grass and Not natively cruel, he at last, from wild flowers from a ruin, that reconciles the necessities of his career, must dine, you to its otherwise intolerable desola- breakfast, and sup on blood. Yet there tion. is something to me exceedingly pensive as well as sublime in all the actions and utterances of Macbeth's despair. It is a powerful nature at bay, and his language, in its fierce sweep, its "Wherefore was that cry? Sey. The queen, my lord, is dead. candle! This crowding in and heaping up distinguish the style, sentiment, imagery, and characters, as well as the incidents of "Macbeth." It is a short play, but the style is uniformly massive-the senti- lurid magnificence, its lofty yet melanment and imagery are rich to exuberance choly tone, its wild moralising, reminds -the characters stand out, mild or terrible us of that which Milton puts into the wholes, distinct from each other as statues, mouth of the Prince of Darkness. Hear even when dancing their wild dance to- the celebrated lines:gether, to the music of Shakspere's magical genius. Banquo, Duncan, Macduff, and Malcolm, have all this distinct colossal character. But the most interesting persons in the drama are the Witches, Macbeth, and his dark Ladye! What unique creations the Witches are! Borderers between earth and hell, they have most of the latter. Their faces are faded, and their raiment withered, in its fires. Their age seems supernatural; their ugliness, too, is not of the earth. A wild mirth mingles with their malice; they have a certain strange sympathy with their victims; they fancy them, How terribly has despair concentrated and toy with Macbeth while destroying and sharpened the intellect which can, him, as a cat with a mouse. They do in the crisis of its fate, thus moralise! not ride on broomsticks, nor even on I have sometimes compared Macbeth to winds; their motions have a dreamlike Saul the unhappy King of Israel. Like rapidity and ease. They are connected, him, he has risen from a lower station; too, with a mythology of Shakspere's like him, he has cemented his tottering own making, perfectly new and com- throne by blood; like him, he is possessed plete. They come and go, and you are by an evil spirit; like him, at last he left in total uncertainty as to their na- becomes desperate. Macbeth hies to conture, origin, and history, and must mere-sult the Wierd Sisters; Saul-the Philily say, "the air hath bubbles as the water stines being upon him-David at a dishath: and these are of them." Altogether, tance-Samuel dead-God refusing to they are the most singular daughters of answer him by Urim, or prophets, or Shakspere; and you wonder what Des- dreams-goes in his extremity and knocks demona, Cordelia, and Imogen would have at the door of Hell. thought of their Wierd Sisters. Next comes the gloomy tyrant of Scotland. I figure him as a tall, strong, darkhaired, dark-eyed, black-browed mountaineer, possessing originally a strong, if not a noble nature. Ambition is dropped like hag-seed by the fiends into Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, About Lady Macbeth there has been much needless critical discussion. Some have painted her in colours supernaturally dark and deformed, another and more hideous Hecate. Others have, in defending, gone so far as to make her almost amiable; who, I suppose, kissed |