more impressive than poetry had ever yet embodied; strains which shall now sound through distant posterity, with increasing energy, harmony, and interest, and which shall powerfully and beneficially continue to influence and to mould both national and individual feeling.

His characters live and breathe before us-we perceive not only what they say and do, but what they feel and think; and we are tempted to believe that, like some magician of old, he possessed the art of transfusing himself into the frame, and speaking through the organs of those whom he wished to represent-so exactly has he drawn, without deviation from the general law and broad track of life, each class, condition and character of man.Whether, says one of his commentators, he delineates the possessor of a throne, or the tenant of a cottage, the warrior in battle, or statesman in debate, youth in its fervor, or old age in its repose, guilt in torment, or innocence in peace, the votaries of pleasure, or the victims of despair—we behold each character developing itself, not through the medium of self-description, but as an actual experience, through the influence and progression of events, and the re-action of surrounding agents.

The late Lord Lyttleton, speaking of Shaks

peare, says:—“ No author had ever so copious, so bold, so creative an imagination, with so perfect a knowledge of the passions, the humors and the sentiments of mankind. He painted all characters, from heroes and kings down to innkeepers and peasants, with equal truth and equal force. If human nature were quite destroyed, and no monument left of it except his works, other beings might learn what man was, from those writings alone."

Doctor Johnson exhibits another picture of Nature's bard, which, although more pompous and more figurative, is not less true, when he says:— “The works of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed, and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented by flowers. The composition of Shakspeare is a forest, in which oaks extend their branches, and pines tower in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes affording shelter to myrtles and roses-filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless diversity."

Upon his arrival in London, he entered the Theatre, as we are told by Rowe, in a very mean rank. And even his ability to procure this post is conjectured to have arisen from his presumed knowledge of Green, and Burbige, and Hemming, at that time,

all greatly distinguished as Comedians, and some of whom were said to have resided in the native place of Shakspeare, to the influence of which circumstance, is ascribed even the mean rank which he acquired in Theatricals.

Others of his biographers present him in a still more degraded point of view. According to their account, coaches not being used at that period, for some time after his arrival in London, he waited at the doors of the Theatre, engaged in holding horses until the Play should be out.

Even in this very humble office, he is said to have been a favorite. Frequenters of the Theatre would trust none but Will Shakspeare, who rendered himself conspicuous by his care and his promptitude. His business thus becoming more extensive, he hired boys, who were subject to his inspection and control. At that time, it was quite a recommendation for employment to be able to say, "I am Shakspeare's boy." And long after Shakspeare had abandoned this occupation, those who still pursued it, went by the name of Shakspeare's Boys.

Doubts are entertained, and expressed, by many of the commentators upon Shakspeare, as to the truth of this story: and some of them deny it alto

gether, upon the score of alleged improbability. I cannot perceive the improbability; reduced to beggary-driven from his home by persecution-leaving his wife and children to rely upon their friends, for a precarious subsistence-without, at any rate at that time, having acquired any fame that it was desirable to retain—arriving in London totally destitute, and requiring some means for immediate subsistence, I repeat it, I do not see the improbability of his having resorted to those measures to which I have above adverted. He had at that time written nothing. Venus and Adonis, the first heir of his invention, was written in 1593, of course, some time after the period to which we have referred. If you look to the reputation which he acquired some ten years afterwards, and connect that with his degraded occupation, upon his first arrival in London, to be sure, the improbability would be striking and startling. But there was a vast difference in the claims of Shakspeare, between those different and distant periods. Nay those who deny this humiliating account, do not themselves place the immortal bard in much more favorable circumstances. According to their account, he was first employed as a call-boy at the Theatre, for the purpose of assisting the prompter, and giving notice to

the players of their turn to appear, for which service he received six shillings and eight pence, per week.

It may be supposed that the degradation of Shakspeare was to be deplored-far from it—it was part of his study-part of the great volume of human nature, with every page of which he became so familiar. At the door, and behind the scenes of the Theatre—at the Boar's Head, and at the sign of the Mermaid—in poverty, and in comparative affluence with the companions of his looser hours, and in the pomp and parade of regal grandeur and display— he saw nature only. His study was man, exhibited in various phases, and in diversified circumstances; and under different masks-but still man. His spoil was the human heart; he became the master of all its passions, saw through all their devious courses, and stripped them at pleasure of their disguises. Hence it follows, that those who are best read in the Book of Nature, can best appreciate his worth. His mind was not directed to words, but to thoughts, and feeling, and therefore such critics as Johnson and Pope, and Warburton, and Voltaire, were for the most part incapable, with all their learning, of forming a just estimate of his value. Let us, by way of illustration, as one of a thousand instances,