his defires to his moral obligations. He ftrives indee abfurdity, to draw that line which was never drawn, tinction which never can be made, to separate the pur part of love, affigning limits, and afcribing bounds to them by different names; but if we take his own found at laft only to prefer one gratification to another, field to the enjoyment of immortal charms. The read fefs that no great refpect is due to the judgment of Hercules, with fuch a choice before him.-In short, t and the wife of Potiphar the more interefting of t paffions of the former are repreffed by confcious rectit obedience to the higheft law. The prefent narrative disappointment of an eager female, and the death of boy. The deity, from her language, fhould feem to cated in the school of Meffalina; the youth, from hi might be fufpected of having felt the difcipline of a Tur It is not indeed very clear whether Shakspeare mean fion, with Le Brun, to recommend continence as a virtu hand with Aretine on a licentious canvas. If our poet defign in view, he has been unfortunate in his condu fhield which he lifts in defence of chastity, is wrought w tricious imagery as cannot fail to counterpoife a moral pu peare, however, was no unfkilful mythologift, and m that Adonis was the offspring of Cynaras and Myrrha. therefore would have prevented him from raifing an exa nence out of the produce of an incestuous bed.-Confid only in the light of a jeu d'efprit, written without pec we shall even then be forry that our author was unwilli character of his hero as he found it; for the common and fable affures us, that "when bright Venus yielded up her charms, "The bleft Adonis languish'd in her arms.' We should therefore have been better pleased to have fee fituation of Afcanius, cum gremio fotum dea tollit in altos "Idaliæ lucos, ubi mollis amaracus illum "Floribus et multa afpirans complectitur umbra;" than in the very act of repugnance to female temptatio being rarely found in the catalogue of Pagan virtues. If we enquire into the poetical merit of this performan no honour to the reputation of its author. The greate Shakspeare is to be fought in dramatick dialogue, expreff mate acquaintance with every paffion that fooths or ravag debafes the human mind. Dialogue is a form of compor has been known to quicken even the genius of thofe who in terrupted narrative have funk to a level with the multitude writers. The fmaller pieces of Otway and Rowe have adde their fame. Let it be remembered too, that a contemporary author, Dr. Gabriel Harvey, points out the Venus and Adonis as a favourite only with the young, while graver readers bestowed their attention on the Rape of Lucrece. Here I cannot help obferving that the poetry of the Roman legend is no jot fuperior to that of the mythological story. A tale which Ovid has completely and affectingly told in about one hundred and forty verfes, our author has coldly and imperfectly spun out into near two thoufand. The attention therefore of thefe graver perfonages mult have been engaged by the moral tendency of the piece, rather than by the force of ftyle in which it is related. STEEVENS. This firft effay of Shakspeare's Mufe does not appear to me by any means fo void of poetical merit as it has been represented. In what high eftimation it was held in our authour's life-time, may be collected from what has been already obferved in the preliminary remark, and from the circumstances mentioned in a note which the reader will find at the end of The Rape of Lucrece. Gabriel Harvey's words as quoted by Mr. Steevens in a note on Hamlet, (not that the judgment of one who thought that English verses ought to be conftructed according to the rules of Latin profody, is of much value,) are these. "The younger fort take much delight in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis: but his Lucrece, and his tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, have in them to please the wiser fort." To the other elogiums on this piece may be added the concluding lines of a poem entitled Mirrba the Mother of Adonis; or Luftes Prodegies, by William Barksted, 1607: "But stay, my Mufe, in thine own confines keep, "Hath purchas'd it; cyprus thy brows will fit." "Will you read Virgil?" fays Carew in his Differtation on The excellencie of the English tongue, (published by Camden in his Remaines, 1614,) take the earl of Surrey;" [he means Surrey's tranflation of the fecoud and fourth Æneid.] "Catullus? Shakespeare, and Marlowe's fragment." In A Remembrance of fome English poets, at the end of "The Complaints of Poetry," no date, the authour, after praifing fome other writers, thus fpeaks of our poet: "And Shakespeare, thou, whose honey-flowing vaine "(Pleafing the world) thy praises doth containe; "Whose VENUS and whofe LUCRECE, fweet and chaste, "Live ever you, at leaft in fame live ever! "Well may the body die, but fame die never." To thefe teftimonies I may add that of Edward Phillips, and perhaps that of Milton, his uncle; for it is highly probable that the elogium on F 4 Shakspeare, Shakspeare, given in the Theatrum Poetarum, 1674, was either written or revifed by our great epick poet. In Phillips's account of the modern poets our authour is thus defcribed: "WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, the glory of the English stage, whose nativity at Stratford upon Avon is the highest honour that town can boast of. From an actor of tragedies and comedies, he became a maker; and fuch a maker, that though fome others may perhaps preferve a more exact decorum and economie, especially in tragedy, never any exprefs'd a more lofty and tragick heighth, never any reprefented nature more purely to the life; and where the polishments of art are moft wanting, (as perhars his learning was not extraordinary,) he pleafeth with a certain wild and native elegance; and in all his writings hath an unvulgar ftyle, as well in his Venus and Adonis, his Rape of Lucrece, and other various poems, as in his dramaticks." Let us, however, view thefe poems, uninfluenced by any authority. To form a right judgment of any work, we should always take into our confideration the means by which it was executed, and the contemporary performances of others. The fmaller pieces of Otway and Rowe add nothing to the reputation which they have acquired by their dramatick works, becaufe preceding writers had already produced happier compofitions; and because there were many poets, during the period in which Rowe and Otway exhibited their plays, who produced better poetry, not of the dramatick kind, than theirs: but, if we except Spenfer, what poet of Shakspeare's age produced poems of equal, or nearly equal, excellence to thofe before us? Did Turberville? Did Golding? Did Phaer? Did Drant? Did Googe? Did Churchyard? Did Fleming? Did Fraunce? Did Whetstone? Did Gafcoigne ? Did Sidney? Did Marlowe, Nafhe, Kyd, Harrington, Lilly, Peele, Greene, Watfon, Breton, Chapman, Daniel, Drayton, Middleton or Jonfon? Sackville's Induction is the only fmall piece of that age, that I recollect, which can stand in competition with them. If Marlowe had lived to finish his Hero and Leander, of which he wrote little more than the first two Seftiads, he too perhaps might have contefted the palm with Shakspeare. Concerning the length of these pieces, which is, 1 think,justly objected to, I fhall at prefent only obferve, that it was the fashion of the day to write a great number of verfes on a very flight fubject, and our poet in this as in many other inftances adapted himfelf to the taste of his own age. It appears to me in the highest degree improbable that Shakspeare had any moral view in writing this poem; Shakspeare, who, (as Dr. Johnfon has justly obferved,) generally "facrifices virtue to convenience, and is fo much more careful to please than to inftruct, that he feems to write without any moral purpofe;"-who "carries his perfons indifferently through right and wrong, and at the clofe difmifies them without further care, and leaves their examples to operate by chance." As little probable is it, in my apprehenfion, that he departed on any fettled principles from the mythological story of Venus and Adonis. As well might we fuppofe, that in the conftruction of his plays he deliberately deviated from the rules of Ariftotle, (of which after the publi cation of Sir Philip Sidney's Treatife he could not be ignorant,) with a view to produce a more animated and noble exhibition than Ariftotle or his followers ever knew. His method of proceeding was, I appre→ hend, exactly fimilar in both cafes; and he no more deviated from the claffical reprefentation on any formed and digested plan, in the one cafe, than he neglected the unities in the other. He merely (as I conceive,) in the prefent instance, as in many others, followed the story as he found it already treated by preceding English writers; for I am perfuaded that The Sheepbeard's Song of Venus and Adonis, by Henry Constable, preceded the poem before us. Of this, it may be faid, no proof has been produced; and certainly I am at prefent unfurnished with the means of establishing this fact, though I have myfelf no doubts upon the fubject. But Marlowe, who indifputably wrote before Shakspeare, had in like manner reprefented Adonis as "infenfible to the care les of tranfcendent beauty." In his Hero and Leander he thus defcribes the lady's drefs: The outfide of her garments were of lawne; "The lining purple filke, with guilt ftars drawne *; "To please the careleffe and difdainful eyes See alfo a pamphlet entitled Never too late, by Robert Green, A. M. 1590, in which the following madrigal is introduced: "Sweet Adon, dar'ft not glance thine eye "(N'oferes vous, mon bel amy?) "Upon thy Venus that muft die? "All thy beauties fting my heart; I have not been able to afcertain who it was that first gave fo extrawith guilt fars drawne;] By drawne I fuppofe the poet means, that stars were here and there interfperfed. So, in Kind-Hartes Dreame, a pamphlet written in 1592: "—his hose pain'd with yellow, drawn out with blew." MALONE. VOL. X. F 5 ordinary ordinary a turn to this celebrated fable, but I fufpect it to ha from fome of the Italian poets. The poem already quoted, which I imagine was writt Constable, being only found in a very scarce mifcellany, e land's Helicon, quarto, 1600, I shall subjoin it. Henry C the author of fome fonnets prefixed to Sir Philip Sidney' Poefie, and is "worthily joined (fays A. Wood,) with Sir Ec fome of whofe verfes are preferved in the Paradife of Dai 1580.-Conftable likewife wrote fome fonnets printed in fome of his verses are cited in a mifcellaneous collection e land's Parnaffus, 1600. He was of St. John's college, in and took the degree of bachelor of arts in 1579. Edmun his Hypercritica, (which appears to have been written af 1616, and remained in manufcript till 1722, when it wa Hall at the end of Triveti Annales,) has taken a view of 1 old English poets, and claffes Constable with Gascoigne, Dy and Thomas Sackville, earl of Dorfet." Noble Henry (fays he,) was a great mafter of English tongue, nor had man of our nation a more pure, quick, or higher delivery witness among all other, that fonnet of his before his majesty I have not feen much of Sir Edward Dyer's poetry. Amon late poets George Gafcoigne's works may be endured. But tbofe times, (if Albion's England be not preferred,) is The Magiftrates, and in that Mirrour, Sackville's Induction," & The first eight lines of each ftanza of the following poem ou rather to be printed in four, as the rhymes are in the prefent r obvious; but I have followed the arrangement of the old co probably was made by the author. MALONE. THE SHEEPHEARDS SOL O F VENUS AND ADONIS. VENUS faire did ride, siluer doues they drew her, By the pleafant lawnds, ere the funne did rise: Veftaes beautie rich open'd wide to view her; Philomel records pleafing harmonies. Euery bird of spring Cheerfully did fing, Paphos' goddeffe they falute: |