man declared that he translated the last twelve books of the "Iliad" in fifteen weeks—a feat that seems well-nigh incredible; but there is every sign that the work was done with great rapidity.

"The great obstacle," writes Charles Lamb, "to Chapman's translations being read is their unconquerable quaintness. He pours out in the same breath the most just and natural and the most violent and fierce expressions. He seems to grasp whatever words come first to hand during the impetus of inspiration, as if all other must be inadequate to the divine meaning. But passion, the all in all in poetry, is everywhere present, raising the low, dignifying the mean, and putting sense into the absurd."

The story of George Chapman's life is untold. We know scarcely anything about him beyond the dates of his publications and the fact that his patron was Sir Thomas Walsingham, through whom he is supposed to have gained some position at court. He died in 1634.

[Two editions of Chapman's Homer have appeared within the last half-century; one of the "Iliad," in two vols., with introduction and notes by Dr. Cooke Taylor, and another containing the whole works of Homer, in four vols., edited by Richard Hooper. "Conversations on Some of the Old Poets," by James Russell Lowell, a little volume published in 1845, contains the author's youthful thoughts on several of our early poets. Considerable attention is paid to Chapman, and probably more praise awarded than the author of the "Biglow Papers" would give now; but the book is delightful for its freshness and enthusiasm.]

CHAPTER IV.

THE ELIZABETHAN POETS (Continued).

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

THE Elizabethan poets mentioned in the last chapter still stand like landmarks in the literature. of their country. The place they hold is not exalted, but it is secure, and to each of them a measure of respect is due. But we come now to a name that towers far above them all.

William Shakespeare, 1564-1616.

William Shakespeare is the greatest of our poets -the greatest of all poets-and his gifts are so infinitely varied that it is almost impossible to criticize him justly. One reader will be enthralled by one phase of his genius, a second reader by another, and no one has enough of imagination and intellectual capacity to grasp the whole. Shakespeare was great all round; his best critics, including even men of consummate power, like Coleridge and Goethe, were great but in parts, and if they could not fully interpret this

myriad-minded poet, an ordinary lover of poetry can but touch the theme with humility and reserve.

Feeling, then, how much there is to say about Shakespeare-whose works are in themselves a literature-and how impossible it is to say it adequately, I shall content myself with making a few concise remarks, and with referring the student to the best sources of information open to him for the study of this incomparable poet. Moreover, this reticence is in accordance with the purport of my volume. Shakespeare's genius is expressed almost entirely in the dramatic form, and in these pages the drama is "out of court." Neither Shakespeare's youthful poems, "Venus and Adonis" and "Lucrece," nor his beautiful but obscure sonnets, would claim much attention from us apart from the plays. In these may be found in richest abundance every element of poetry-imagination, fancy, wit, humour, pathos, dignity of thought, aptness of expression, the loveliest strains of melody, the largest sagacity, and a creative power, the highest possession of the poet-which has never been surpassed. No man can venture to say that he has mastered Shakespeare. As well might he imagine, after visiting a scene of great loveliness or sublimity, that he had learnt every lesson Nature can teach him. The works of all great poets, indeed, will yield much in beauty of blossom and wealth of fruit to the man who studies them most heartily; but the time may perhaps come when he has gained all they have to give him. This can never be the case with Shake

speare. Great though he be, it is sheer idolatry and folly to write of him as a faultless poet. His faults are on the surface, and are due for the most part to his superabundant vitality, and in a measure to the influences of his age. The reader is sometimes offended by grossness of language and of plot, and sometimes irritated by the poet's love of puns and quibbles. Happily for England and for the honour of our literature, Shakespeare is, in the main, a thoroughly moral writer. He paints vice with the hand of a master, but he does not glorify it; he is coarse in expression, but the spirit that pervades his poetry is pure and on the side of virtue. His intellect is robust, and he has at the same time the gentleness and tenderness we admire so much in women. The highest minds, it has been said, are never wholly masculine, and Shakespeare's sweetness is as conspicuous as his strength. We see this in the pure womanliness of his feminine characters-in Rosalind and Juliet, in Imogen and Perdita, in Beatrice and Desdemona, in Isabella and Portia. And it may be seen, too, in his tender love of nature, a love which lights up pages of tragic horror or of coarse worldliness, so that the reader still feels the grateful warmth of the sunshine, and sees the steadfast beauty of the stars. The lavish prodigality of this wonderful poet reminds us of Nature herself. He scatters his gifts broadcast, as if he had no fear of exhausting the matchless resources of his genius. And yet it cannot be said that there is much in

his plays, certainly not in his later plays, which can be called waste, or which fails to contribute to the action of the drama. It is possible in certain cases to write of a man's poetry as something apart from his art as a dramatist. We can do so, for instance, in writing of Ben Jonson or of Dryden, but with regard to Shakespeare this is impossible. There are dramatists who are not poets, and poets who, when writing plays, have not given scope to their poetical genius. In Shakespeare, as I have said. already, the poet predominates over the dramatist, or rather the poetry is so interfused with the action of the drama that the two are linked together inseparably. Of all his plays the most purely poetical are, perhaps, the "Midsummer Night's Dream," the "Tempest," and the "Winter's Tale;" and it is remarkable that the two last-mentioned plays belong to the latest season of his poetical activity. Lyric verse of the most enchanting beauty is scattered over his thirty-five dramas, and in this department of poetry, as in most others, Shakespeare stands without a rival. Yet he was not without great competitors in that wonderful age of song, and John Fletcher, the dramatic associate of Beaumont, had upon rare occasions a voice almost equal to that of Shakespeare himself. Poets could sing in Shakespeare's time, and several of his fellowdramatists sang with a bird-like impulse that seemed like "unpremeditated art." By degrees this art was lost, and with rare exceptions the poets.

John

Fletcher, 1579-1625.

F