dier, no less than the admired poet of his time, and we should allow accordingly in our estimate of his poetry. He filled a brief career with monuments of literary glory and military honor: he endeared himself to a nation by his graces and worth, and drew friends and followers to his heart, by its sincerity and virtues. He died "with his martial cloak about him," and full of fame. It was reckoned an honor to have been his friend. History records not his enemy.

The little we know of Shakspeare is to be learnt from a perusal of his Sonnets, which afford a glimpse of poetical autobiography. The main particulars are his devoted gratitude to his noble patron, the generous Earl of Southampton, and his romantic attachment to a "fair personne, who is supposed to have been a beautiful specimen of an unfortunate class of females. Our "myriad-minded" bard, far above the general order of humanity, as he was, from his vast intellectual superiority, was yet a very man (and for that we love him all the better) in his affections and passions, like to one of us. The most profound of philosophers, the noblest of humorists, the grandest Painter of the passions, was a lover and gallant gentleman. Perhaps his constancy was unable to stand the test of temptation on all occasions (but that we may allow to a roving and excited youth): though after middle life we hear of his quiet life as a landholder and paterfamilias. Doubtless "the roaming swaats that drank divinely" at the Mermaid, and his lively associates at the Globe Theatre, were sometimes too much for any prudential plan of life. But in those scenes the great teacher learnt many an instructive lesson, which he has taught us; nor shall we dare to arraign the venial follies of the selectest spirit of our race. We find

numerous single lines and couplets in some of these sonnets that develope the character of their author more fully than any labored biographical or critical commentary. gives us pictures of his own feelings, his desiring "this man's art and that man's scope:" he apologizes for his profession as an actor, insinuating that it degrades him not (as it never should degrade any, but as it too often tends to degradation). He fairly speaks out a lofty self-estimate, none the less true for its candor:

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unwept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,

Nor Mars's sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.

The vulgar error of Shakspeare's reserve must have arisen with those who never saw his miscellaneous poems. It is true, amid the varied characters that stud his dramatic page, it is impossible to fasten any upon him, who painted them all. But we find self-confession enough in the sonrets, and we are much surprised at the nature of it, so much of melancholy and repining, utterly unlike our idea of the robust genius and vigorous heart of the creator of Falstaff and of Lear.

Shakspeare's best sonnets, and indeed nearly all of them, are devoted to the expression of an apparently hopeless passion. They form a love history, mysterious and obscure, which we shall not attempt to penetrate. It is enough to add, that (which might be premised as impossible) they do not raise Shakspeare to a higher rank than he

before attained: that perhaps we idolize his fame less where we are admitted (too freely) into certain secrets of his personal history, and it must also be confessed that he has dallied with the muse in these offerings at her shrine, rather than put forth his Samson strength in lofty triumph.

On no one occasion does he attempt to reach a higher pitch than was attained by the general attempts in the same form of poetry. It is true even the lightest trifles are impressed with a nameless spirit from his exuberant genius and subtle individuality. It is true his phrases, his expressive language, are eminently Shakspearean. Yet are they comparatively wasted on trivial themes, or levelled to a moderate keynote of passion. They contain none of the deep contemplativeness of Wordsworth, or the spirited yet condensed power of Milton. We speak thus of these productions in comparison with similar attempts of other great poets; and more especially in comparison with the other works of Shakspeare-his dramas, the richest legacy ever bequeathed to mankind by a single individual. For any other bard, it would be praise enough to have equalled the least valuable works of Shakspeare, and these sonnets would make the reputation of almost any one else. two finest occur in one of his plays ;* that on Study, beginning, "Study is like heaven's glorious sun," and that more tender passage of self-expostulation and apology, for which we must make room:

Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,
'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,
Persuade my heart to this false perjury?
Vows for thee broke, deserve not punishment.

Love's Labor Lost.

The

A woman I forswore; but I will prove,
Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;
Thy grace being gain'd, cures all disgrace in me.
My vow was breath, and breath a vapor is;
Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,
Exhal'st this vapor vow; in thee it is:

If broken, then it is no fault of mine.

If by me broke, what fool is not so wise
To break an oath, to win a Paradise?

His picture of his mistress forms a fair pendant to the above, and should not therefore be omitted.

Fair is my love, but not as fair as fickle,
Mild as a dove, but neither true nor trusty,
Brighter than glass, and yet, as glass is, brittle,
Softer than wax, and yet, as iron, rusty,

A little pale, with damask dye to grace her,
None fairer, nor one falser to deface her.
Her lips to mine how often hath she join❜d,
Between each kiss her oaths of true love swearing!
How many tales to please me hath she coin'd,
Dreading my love, the loss whereof still fearing!
Yet in the midst of all her pure protestings,
Her faith, her oaths, her tears, and all, were jestings.
She burnt with love, as straw with fire flameth,
She burnt with love, as soon as straw outburneth;
She fram'd the love, and yet she foil'd the framing.
She bade love last, and yet she fell a turning.

Was this a lover, or a lecher whether?

Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.*

Passing over the slight effusions of forgotten versifiers, our list brings us next to Drummond of Hawthornden, the

* A somewhat similar history is to be read in the "Modern Pygmalion" of a late brilliant critic and metaphysician.

best representative of the Scottish muse before Allan Ramsay's time, and the friend of Ben Jonson. The record of their famous conversations has been made public of late years, through the researches of one of the Antiquarian Societies. Like all of the early sonneteers, who copied their master Petrarch in this, as in other respects, Drummond had his mistress for a muse-but the specimen we shall present of his sonnets, is one of a more general description. It is addressed to Sleep, and discovers a close resemblance to the verses of Sidney and Shakspeare, before quoted:

Sleep, silence' child, sweet father of soft rest,
Prince whose approach peace to all mortals brings,
Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings,
Sole comforter of minds which are opprest;
Lo by thy charming rod all breathing things
Lie slumb'ring, with forgetfulness possest,
And yet o'er me to spread thy drowsy wings
Thou sparest (alas !) who cannot be thy guest.
Since I am thine, O come, but with that face
To inward light which thou art wont to show,
With fancied solace ease a true-felt woe;

Or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace,

Come as thou wilt, and what thou wilt bequeath:
I long to kiss the image of my death.

This poet is distinguished for a sweet and elegant pathetic vein; his line is "most musical, most melancholy." He writes thus of his prevalent manner, in a sonnet on his Lute:

What art thou but a harbinger of woe?

Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more,
But orphan's wailings to the fainting ear,

Each stroke a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear,