THE two works referred to in this article are samples of what has been done for Shakspearian literature within the last few years. It is a matter of congratulation to all students of the great dramatist that the appliances of modern science should have given us an exact fac-simile of the first collected edition of the poet's works, and thus have enabled all readers to judge for themselves of the state and arrangement of the text as it first left the hands of the poet's literary executors. Mr. Neil's little book has done good service in presenting the facts of the poet's biography, and the most material documents relating to it, in their strict chronological order. The value of the slenderest notices derived from original papers in illustrating not only the life of the poet, of his family, and his neighbors in Warwickshire, but the spirit and manners of the period, can never be fully appreciated until the whole mass of evidence has been thoroughly sifted. Availing ourselves therefore of what has been brought to light by the indefatigable diligence of the poet's admirers within. the last few years, and of such papers as still remain unpublished in the Record Office, we propose to lay before our readers a sketch of Shakspeare's life and times, carefully eliminating from the former those supposed facts and theories which have gathered round it on the faith of documents now generally regarded with discredit. Of Shakspeare's great contemporaries, by descent as well as by feeling, Spenser was intimately connected with the aristocracy of England. His life was spent at a distance from the metropolis. During his long residence in Ireland he treasured up the impressions he had received in his youth of the glories of Elizabeth, and the grandeur of Protestantism,-its heroic sufferings, its eventual triumph over all forms 33 with humanity, that profound appreciation of it in all its forms, which is one of his greatest characteristics as a poet. of falsehood and deceit, moral, religious, social, scientific, and political. These impressions were never disturbed by too close an approximation to realities. Hap- How far the circumstances of his life pily, it was never the poet's lot to witness and times may have determined or assis the party and personal squabbles in which ed the development of his genius, it is not his knights indulged too freely in the court easy to ascertain. Of no other English of his Gloriana, or to see prelates and Puri- poet can it be said with greater justice: tans divided, and both equally forgetful of "Poeta nascitur non fit." Many, indeed mutual charity, in bitter controversies about of Shakspeare's enthusiastic admirers w square caps and white surplices. Hooker, not allow that he owed anything to artor to on the other hand, owed his descent to the learning. They claim for Nature and for burgher class. The chief part of his life was natural inspiration alone those great mas spent in the quiet seclusion of the universi- terpieces of invention in which others have ty. If Spenser was mainly indebted to his professed to find traces of the most proimagination for his knowledge of the ex- found philosophy, the most acute physi ternal world, Hooker judged it by his logical knowledge, the clearest distinctions books. His mind was as deeply tinctured of races, the fullest appreciation of all forms with fathers and schoolmen-with an ideal of poetry, the exactest study of man and Christianity enshrined in the past-as of nature. Spenser's imagination lingered over mediæval romances and Arthurian legends. Over both the past had a stronger hold than the present; the rò xalòv of the one and the rò dixator of the other are equally heroical-both equally transcend the capabilities and the limits of poor, failing, commonplace humanity. That Shakspeare owed most to nature, that his obligations to learning or acc dental circumstances were but slight, we may fully concede, without at the same time entirely overlooking the obvious a vantages afforded by the times for n matic composition, and the traces of clas sical education to be found throughout It was otherwise with Shakspeare. the poet's works. The same keen and unLike Spenser, he was allied by his mother's erring instinct which from a single glance side to gentle blood;* like Hooker, he was could body forth and project in a visible linked to the burgher classes by the stronger form the whole life and character of a man, parent. Brought up in the country till the however remote from ordinary observation, age of manhood, thrown early upon his would by a similar power extract from own resources, obliged to no college-fel- books-poor and meagre in themselveslowship like Hooker, to no diplomatic ap- the quintessence of a life rich and varied pointment like Spenser, he was tossed instinct with thoughts and feelings, such on the seething waves of the metropolis, as inferior intelligences would fail to or rather cast himself upon them, with gather from the most perfect productions of the same boldness, perhaps the same ap- the greatest genius. The dreary chronicle parent recklessness, as he had entered on the blundering biography, the vapidest a marriage at eighteen, when he was no translations of Cæsar or of Sallust, were better than a poor apprentice or foreman instruments sufficient to set at work that to a failing glover in a poor country town. innate power of the poet which, like Of his life-struggles—and they must have ture itself, develops the most perfect and been many--he has left no sign. Of his glorious results from the most contemp patience, his endurance, his solitary deter- tible and unworthy materials. That mination, whilst unassisted and unadvised what we mean by genius. With ordinary he carved out his way from the safe ob- men the instruments by which they scurity of Stratford to the highest pinnacle must bear some proportion in dignity and of fame, he has told us nothing. This value to the end to be produced; but early familiarity with the hard realities of genius is divine and miraculous in this Ilife left no trace on his mind, as these that it is not tied to the order, methods, things leave scars and traces on inferior and instruments by which common me intellects, beyond perhaps that sympathy are bound. Admitting, then, that amount of training or study can account for Shakspeare's plays, admitting al that the poet was little indebted to school *“She was one of the heirs of Robert Arden of Wellingcote.”—Grant of Arms. work no |