SHA Shakespeare. - Dryden. HAKESPEARE was the man who, of all modern and perhaps ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive Soul. All the images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily; when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted Learning, give him the greater commendation he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. Shakespeare. — Anon. poet comes near Shakespeare in the number of may cherish in our bosoms, and that seem almost as if they had grown there, of lines that, like Bosom Friends, are ever at hand to comfort, counsel, and gladden us under all the vicissitudes of Life,-of lines that, according to Bacon's expression, "come home to our business and Bosoms." SHA HAKESPEARE'S genius could adapt itself with such nicety to all the varieties of ever-varying Man, that in his "Titus Andronicus" he has portrayed the very dress of mind which the people of the declining Empire must have worn. I can conceive that the degenerate Romans would clothe their thoughts in just such words. The sayings of the free-garmented folks in "Julius Cæsar" could not have come from the close-buttoned generation in "Othello." Though human Passions are the same in all ages, there are modifications of them dependent on the circumstances of time and place, which Shakespeare has always caught and expressed. He has thus given such a national tinge and epochal propriety to his Characters, that even when one sees Jaques in a bag-wig and sword, one may exclaim, on being told that he is a French nobleman, "This man must have lived at the time when the Italian taste was prevalent in France." How differently does he moralize from King Henry or Hamlet! although their Morality, like all morality, comes to pretty nearly the same conclusion. No Heart would have been strong tough to bad the woe of Lear and Othelis, cxcept that which had the unquenchable elasticity of Falstaff and the "Midsummer Night's Dream." He too is an example that the percep tion of the ridiculous does not necessarily imply bitterness and scorn. Along with his intense Humour, and his equally intense piercing insight into the darkest, most fearful depths of Human Nature, there is still a spirit of universal Kindness, as well as universal Justice, pervading his works and Ben Jonson has left us a precious memorial of him, where he calls him "My gentle Shakespeare." This one epithet sheds a beautiful light on his character: its truth is attested by his Wisdom: which could never have been so perfect, unless it had been harmonized by the gentleness of the Dove. THE whole race of the giants would never pile an Ossa on this Olympus; their missiles would roll back on their heads from the feet of the Gods that dwell there. Even Goethe and Schiller, when they meddled with Shakespeare, and would fain have mended him, have only proved, what Voltaire, and Dryden himself, had proved before, that "Within his circle none can walk but he." Nor, when Shakespeare's genius past away from the earth, did any one akin to him reign in his stead. Indeed, according to that law of alternation, which is so conspicuous in the whole history of Literature, it mostly happens that a period of extraordinary Fertility is followed by a period of Dearth. After the seven plenteous years come seven barren years, which devour the produce of the plenteous ones, yet continue as barren and ill-favoured as ever. Portrait of Himself. Shakespeare. HOUGH from an humble stock, undoubtedly Twas fast food to much Honou, Proud his cradle, He was a Scholar, and a ripe, and good one; I CONSIDER that man to be undone who is insensible speaks Poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her, she would infect to the North Star. She would have made Hercules have turned spit; yea, and have cleft his Club, to make the Fire too. As is the razor's edge invisible, tongues of mocking Wenches are as keen Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen; Above the Sense of Sense: so sensible Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings, Fleeter than Arrows, Bullets, Wind, Thought, swifter things. Sickness. - Publius Syrus. THE sick man acts a foolish part, who makes his Phy sician his Heir. Sickness. · Burton. ICKNESS, the mother of Modesty, puts us in mind of Sour Mortality, and while we drive on heedlessly in the full career of worldly pomp and Jollity, kindly pulls us by the ear and brings us to a proper sense of our Duty. Silence. Shakespeare. THE Silence often of pure Innocence SILENCE is the safest course for any man to adopt A who distrusts himself. MAN'S Profundity may keep him from opening on a first interview, and his Caution on a second; but I should suspect his Emptiness, if he carried on his Reserve to a third. IF the prudence of Reserve and Decorum dictates Silence in some circumstances, in others prudence of a higher order may justify us in speaking our Thoughts. Silence. Bouhours. -- SILENCE is a Virtue in those who are deficient in understanding. Silence. S. T. Coleridge. SILENCE does not always mark Wisdom. Simplicity. Shakespeare. WHOSE Nature is so far from doing harms, WHEN HEN a man is made up wholly of the Dove, without the least grain of the Serpent in his composition, he becomes ridiculous in many circumstances of Life, and very often discredits his best actions. Simplicity. Steele. SIMPLICITY, of all things, is the hardest to be copic‹l. HE is of a free and open nature, That thinks men honest, that but seem to be so ; As Asses are. Sin. Barrow. SIIN is never at a stay; if we do not retreat from it, we shall advance in it; and the further on we go, the more we have to come back. Sin. Baxter. USE Sin as it will use you; spare it not, for it will not spare you; it is your Murderer, and the Murderer of the World; use it, therefore, as a Murderer should be used. Kill it before it kills you; and though it kill your bodies, it shall not be able to kill your souls; and though it bring you to the grave, as it did your Head, it shall not be able to keep you there. If the thoughts of Death, and the Grave, and Rottenness be not pleasant to you, hearken to every temptation to Sin, as you would hearken to a temptation to Self-murder, and as you would do if the Devil had brought you a knife, and tempted you to cut your throat with it: so do when he offereth you the bait of Sin. You love not Death; love not the cause of Death. WHAT is more miserable than to see an old man only just entering on the practice of Virtue? IN is the fruitful Parent of distempers, an ill lives occasion good Physicians. HAME is a great restraint upon sinners at first; but Innocence, their Modesty is not like to be long troublesome to them. For Impudence comes on with Vice, and grows up with it. Lesser vices do not banish all Shame and Modesty; but great and abominable Crimes harden men's foreheads, and make them shameless. When men have the Heart to do a very bad thing, they seldom want the face to bear it out. SINCE NINCERITY is like travelling in a plain beaten road, which commonly brings a man sooner to his Journey's end than by-ways, in which men often lose themselves. Sincerity. — Shakespeare. HIS Words are bonds, his Oaths are oracles; His Love sincere, his Thoughts immaculate; His Tears, pure messengers sent from his Heart; His Heart as far from fraud as Heaven from Earth. Sincerity. Tillotson. IF the show of any thing be good for any thing, I am sure Sincerity is better; for why does any man dissemble, or seem to be that which he is not, but because he thinks it good to have such a Quality as he pretends INCERITY is an opening of the Heart. We find it in very few people; and that which we generally see is nothing but a subtle Dissimulation to attract the Confidence of others. |