In such circumstances one can scarcely apprehend the nature of the inducements which existed for the exercise of the higher intellectual faculties. In particular, to have such exquisite creations as Portia, Rosalind, Desdemona, and Cordelia, given up to be personated by necessarily inappreciative boys would with most men have acted as a drawback on their energies of the most serious description. There was, it is true, the spur of rivalry. It was something gained to a young artist that he should excel such men as Peel or Marlowe, as well as all his other competitors for stage popularity. But having cast them all irredeemably into the shade, and having held his ground triumphantly even against his greatest rival Ben Jonson, where was the temptation to the attainment of further excellence-to "scorn delights and live laborious days" in continued exercise of his invention? As master of the drama, Shakspere's position was unassailable; he had early gained, for these days, something like a fair life-competency. Why not then, like his own Prospero, break his magic wand and bury it certain fathoms deep?" Posthumous fame, "that last infirmity of noble minds," Shakspere could not expect. How could he? His works were penned for the players only, and, for aught he seemed to care, the manuscripts might have been committed to the flames. Never, in so far as we can know, did he revise any portion of his plays for publication, their presentation on the stage being seemingly the alpha and the omega of his ambition. Whence, then, the super-eminent excellence of most of his

hung with arras tapestry, and sometimes pictures, and the internal roof with blue drapery, except on the performance of tragedy, when the sides, back, and roof of the stage were covered with black. The stage was commonly strewed with rushes, though on particular occasions it was matted over.

"The performance commenced at three o'clock in the public theatres, the signal beginning being the third sounding or flourish of trumpets: It was customary for the actor who spoke the prologue to be dressed in a long velvet cloak. In the early part of Shakspere's theatrical career, the want of scenery appears to have been supplied by the primitive expedient of hanging out a board, on which was written the place where the action was to be understood as taking place. Sometimes when a change of scene was requisite, the audience were left to imagine that the actors, who still remained on the stage, had removed to the spot mentioned. During the performance, the clown would frequently indulge in extemporaneous buffoonery. There was always music between the acts, and sometimes singing and dancing. And at the end of the play, after a prayer for the reigning monarch, offered by the actors on their knees, the clown would entertain the audience by descanting on any theme which the spectators might supply, or by performing what was called a jig, a farcical doggrel improvisation, accompanied by dancing and singing.

"During the reign of Elizabeth, plays were acted every day in the week, but in the time of James I., though dramatic entertainments on Sundays were allowed at court, they were prohibited in the public theatres. As there were two sorts of theatres, there were two classes of actors. There were the regular companies, acting in the name and under the auspices of the Crown or of a man of rank and influence, such as the Queen's servants (of whom Shakspere was one), the Earl of Leicester's players; those of Lord Warwick, Lord Worcester, Lord Pembroke, &c. There were also certain private adventurers who acted without official licence, and were the subjects of prohibitory enactments.'

productions—their condensed sense, their close-grained wisdom, their sparkling wit, their multiform knowledge of men and things, their rainbow lights of imagination? It were mere vanity on our part to attempt an answer to such queries. Let us be satisfied with knowing that Shakspere conscientiously did his best-that he was no slovenly workman, content to earn his pay, and caring not in what manner his task was performed-that he was-in his highest efforts at least-true to himself, to his own supreme genius, and could not allow the paper before him to be soiled with imperfect thoughts. Byron ("Childe Harold") says of the historian Gibbon that he was

Deep and slow, exhausting thought,

And hiving wisdom with each studious year.

We are not accustomed to credit the poetical temperament with a disposition of this description; but beyond doubt the faculty was possessed by Shakspere, as well as by Homer and by Milton.

This, amongst others, is one of the precious lessons to be acquired by the study of Shakspere's works-the greatest of geniuses ranks amongst the most careful and sedulous of workmen. The pretence is frequently set up, in mitigation of the errors of genius, that eccentricity is one of its nearly inseparable accompaniments, and Dryden's saying that great wit is nearly allied to madness has been received almost as an axiom. But the greatest wit of all wits-in the widest and highest sense of the word-gives no countenance to such an opinion either in his life or his writings. As a man, he was "gentle and easily to be entreated," quiet, grave, and self-possessed, indulging in none of those wild vagaries and passionate outbursts which occasionally brought the names of his player contemporaries-Greene, Marlowe, and Jonson-into such painful prominence, along with many sons of genius all the way on to the present times. As a writer, his best works show that he was studious of excellence, polishing and perfecting, as we believe, to the utmost stretch of his power-thus showing the union of the soberest sense, the deepest study of things, with the most ethereal fancy-practical worldly wisdom combined with boundless imagination--as if Minerva and all the Muses had been in his single person grouped together into a new combination of Graces. Great as a Poet, he is no less great as a Moralist and a Philosopher. From the fountain of his inspiration exhaustless draughts may be

drawn; and in his pages Wisdom becomes the handmaid of Beauty, affording at once food for the imagination and maxims for the conduct of life.

Declining the task of attempting to define at length the special poetical qualifications which have raised the name of Shakspere "above all Greek above all Roman fame," and professing only to notice the subject incidentally, we intend, before proceeding to bring out some of the peculiarities of his genius, to devote a few pages to a point of some importance in connection with that genius. The various points involved in the question "What is poetry?" have not been left in a satisfactory condition by the ordinary class of writers. We may not be able to unravel all its intricacies, but we may hope that at all events we shall not add to the prevailing confusion of ideas.

On few subjects have the minds of men of culture been more divided or confused than in attempting to answer the question alluded to. Volumes have been written on the point, and with the smallest possible results, unless we except the perplexity of the reader, who, should he not be gifted with a turn for metaphysics, is not likely to understand even the phraseology employed in the discussion. In ancient times the poet was also the prophet, and this latter high function has striven to be included in some modern definitions of the poetical office, to the further mystification of the whole subject. Authoritative dictionaries afford no help to the solution of the difficulty. A poet, according to the learned and exact Johnson, is "an inventor, an author of fiction, one who writes in measure;" a poetess is delicately defined as a "she-poet ;" and a poem is simply set down as "the work of a poet-a metrical composition." Webster advances no further; he can only tell us that poetry is "metrical composition." definitions like these, whatever we may say to the obscure dicta of the critics on the other hand, tell us absolutely nothing, because, as might be easily proved, a man may be an inventor, an author of fiction, and one who writes in measure to boot, and still have no pretensions to the character of a poet.

Now,

It may be that the critics and the definers have all along been hunting after a shadow, and that the term "poetry is absolutely and exactly indefinable. We know that philosophers have puzzled themselves with one of the words which must be held as inseparable from all poetical manifestations-we mean the term "beauty." A true, or at

least a satisfactory definition of this apparently simple but in reality mysterious phrase seems to have defied the acutest intellects, from Plato down to Professor Blackie, including the refined speculative minds of Alison and Jeffrey. Goethe, who must be held as an excellent authority, says of beauty that it is impossible to unfold its principles or to tell what it is, contending that the point is in the same position as light, and life, and electricity, and fifty other mysteries. Yet it may be remarked, that in spite of difficulties which, with our limited capacities, seem to be insuperable in relation to an exact definition of the word beauty, as well as concerning many things which fall under our daily gaze, every one can say with tolerable certainty that such things are. That they exist is known, because they are felt and observed. We have the substance, although we may fail to grasp its definition. Thus the child will tell you that flowers are beautiful, such being the word which he has been taught to use in relation to the aspect of those wondrous creations of God; and should the child become a man, and rise even to the sublimest heights of philosophy, he cannot, it would appear, go much farther with safety. He must rest content with the simple and common word, without knowing precisely what it means.

A similar difficulty will be found to attend any attempt to define exactly that collocation of letters which make up the word poetry. And knowing only partially what it is, it may be well to adopt some comprehensive term, which, although failing in exactitude, will convey the idea of a wide and general truth. A definition which will suit all practical purposes is this-that poetry is the embodiment of the beautiful, as unfolded in words as well as in ideas. Let the verbal terms be choice, significant, and appropriate, let the thoughts be noble, lofty, and striking, and both combined must be poetry. It is in this sense that Milton speaks of "thoughts that voluntarily move harmonious. numbers;" and that Hazlitt alludes to poetry as "the music of language answering to the music of the mind." Poetry, says Leigh Hunt in the same spirit, is that which

Sets the mind apart

To worship Nature with a choral heart.

This definition we shall not assume to be exhaustive. In the grotesque or ludicrous assemblage of images which will be found occasionally in poetical productions it may be difficult to discover the element of the beautiful, yet in so far as that element includes a sense of congruity or fitness,

we are justified in transferring the idea of the beautiful to compositions which at first sight seem to lie beyond its scope. And, on the other hand, it may be safely averred that should this inseparable companion of the Muses be altogether absent, in that case the spirit of true poetry is absent also.

That the mind is so constituted as to perceive beauty in material things as in intangible ideas—

Splendour in the grass and glory in the flower,

no less than to see

The light that never was on sea or shore-
The consecration and the poet's dream—

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this faculty may be taken for granted; and the truth once apparent and obvious, why should we trouble ourselves with the reason why, or endeavour to find out the hidden meanings of things? Sufficient perhaps is it to know that the fact of beauty remains, and that these wonderful souls of ours are so contrived as to draw the supremest and purest delight from the marvels of the outer and inner world. Herein lies the foundation of all poetical appreciation. Nothing is too mean, neither is anything too lofty, that may not afford nourishment for the divine faculty. The stones beneath our feet, equally with the far-off shining starspoetically named by Byron "the poetry of heaven"—are the subjects of its exercise. Shakspere, almost prophetically as it seems, imagines one of his creations finding sermons in stones;" we know now with what marvellous power and eloquence the geologists have caused them to discourse. Between these vast extremes-between the pebbles of the valley and the sea-shore, and the burning spheres abovewhat a glorious expanse of creation, all copiously and profusely adorned-the sea, the mountains, the woods, streams, waterfalls, clouds, sunshine and moonshine, storm and calm, all breathing of grandeur and loveliness, and so inviting the contemplation of the creatures formed to enjoy them. This is one grand province of the poet, and these are some of the elements which nurture his existence. But he has yet greater within his domain. He has the entire world of mind as well as of matter. Beyond all that is seen and material, he may explore the inner life of himself and his fellows; and still further, by means of a prevailing fancy and imagination, he may soar above all things of earth, drawing inspiration from the unseen and spiritual. Having exhausted the universe of its treasures, he may create another at will, and thus have as a possession both