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The Editor has thus ventured to show, and he trusts though briefly not unsatisfactorily, that Dr. Johnson's assertion is equally fallacious and unjust; and that the oblivion to which the drama of that age was consigned was altogether independent of its intrinsic worth. It would be much more gratifying, and is infinitely more deserving consideration, could we ascertain by what cooperating circumstances it was enabled to spring, as it were without gradation, from the helplessness and immaturity of infancy, into the beauty and vigour of manhood: and, whether the wreath be adjudged to the sun-like genius of Shakspeare individually, or some leaves of it distributed among the galaxy that illuminates the age*, the splendour in which it is admitted to

taste of his age, and was neglected. Cowley justly appreciated it, but the age corrupted him.

* The brevity so essentially necessary here precludes the possibility of entering fully on any subject; but the Editor cannot but think, that what was observed of Shakspeare, “he found not but created first the stage," might with more truth have been extended to include some of his contemporaries; and that it should not be altogether forgotten that Marlowe, who preceded him, had made some rapid advances to greater perfection. A foreign critic of great excellence observes, "in Marlowe's 'Edward the Second,' I certainly imagine that I can discover the feebler model of the earliest historical pieces of Shakspeare." And the "Edward the Second" was probably the only play of Marlowe's he had ever seen, as it is the only one reprinted in Reed; and he confesses to have obtained his knowledge of Chapman and Heywood only from that collection. It will not be denied that the inequality always discoverable in the writings of that age, is still more conspicuous in this author, and perhaps

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have at once burst through the gloom of ages, is equally deserving attention, and as naturally excites speculative inquiry.

But the drama of that age is not only deserving consideration for its superiority over every other of our own country, but particularly so as a national and original drama, regulated by its own laws, and of course only to be estimated by them: for, as it has of late been justly observed, "There is no monopoly, of poetry for certain ages and nations; and consequently that despotisin in taste, by which it is attempted to make those rules uni

most so in his "Faustus," where the buffoonery and stupid humour of the second-rate characters are constantly intruding on our notice. He has, however, some redeeming scenes of great and undivided interest: and the fury and madness of despair, as depicted in the last scene of that play, is not perhaps exceeded in the language. It may recal to the recollection of the classical reader the situation of Orestes in the early part of Euripides's play of that name. In Orestes, it is true, there is a professed dereliction of reason: but the feelings of Faustus are so tremendously excited, so awfully intense, and have so absolutely mastered reason, that, if he be declared within, he borders on, the bounds of sanity. The Dutchess in Webster's "Dutchess of Malfy," and Calantha, in the "Broken Heart” of Ford, are both subjected to the tortures of the mind, and are lasting evidences of the abilities of their respective authors; but in them the agony is concealed, and arises in a degree from the concealment: Faustus was not strong enough in truth for this; and the circumstances under which he is represented, of themselves so dreadfully awaken sensibility, that if the reader suffers himself' to be borne along by the poet it becomes fearful to look on. The situation of Alphonson, in Act IV. Scene IV. of “ A Wife for a Month," is extraordinarily fine, but, as the representation of the mere sufferings of the body, cannot be compared with it.

versal which were at first perhaps arbitrarily established, is a pretension which ought never to be allowed." It has been asserted, and the Editor believes justly, notwithstanding the distance of time by which it preceded it, that we are indebted for this glorious distinction, with which no nation, Greece and perhaps Spain excepted, can contend with us, to the Reformation. In the chivalrous ages, that preceded that eventful period, literary honours, and, indeed, literature itself, seem to have been held, as by prescriptive right, by the higher classes of society and the members of the religious houses; but at that great revolution of opinion the barriers were broken down, and all classes of society burst into the arena to contend without distinction. The translation of the Bible only, independently of the advantages derived by religion and pure morality, was of great and essential advantage; it opened to all the purest springs of knowledge, and wisdom, and poetry; and the dramatic writers of that age availed themselves of the advantages it held out: it must be evident to every man conversant in their writings, that it was their constant and undeviating study; it was "familiar to them as household words:" what wonder is it then, that containing, as it does, "the noblest poems that ever were wrote in the world," they should catch

*Seward's Preface to Beaumont and Fletcher. See also the fifty-first and fifty-seventh papers in "The Adventurer."

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"some of the sacred fire," some of that noble daring and enthusiasm that every where animate and enlighten the works of their inspired masters? The Reformation therefore ploughed and cleared the surface of an almost uncultivated soil, spreading the seeds of instruction, that in the reign of Elizabeth and James burst forth into a rich and luxuriant harvest. Not that other influences are not discoverable. The Reformation, as to the purposes of poetry, would not perhaps have been attended with such consequences had it occurred at any other period: the age was singularly fitted for the full display of poetic genius: criticism was not then strong enough to wield its leaden mace; there then existed no established tribunals at which the poet might fear to be arraigned; there were then no acknowledged standards of excellence to which enthusiasm was to tame down its excursive spirit; the feeling and the sensibility of the poet alone regulated its course: superstition with "its flocking shadows pale," that vanish into "thin air," before the grey tints that harbinger the morning of philosophical inquiry, was yet sufficiently embodied for the purposes of poetry; and it has justly been observed that " the Shakspeare of a more instructed and polished age, would not have given us a magician darkening the sun at noon, the sabbath of the witches, and the caldron of incantation."

While the dramatic writers of other nations, mo

delling themselves on excellence that had received the applauding testimony of ages, sunk into cold formality, tricked up in stately diction and wordy sentiment, the vigorous and unrestrained genius of our own, opened a rich and unexplored mine in the depths of human passion and human feeling: the heart was the subject of their examination,

and its strange and inward workings the machinery which they delighted to employ:" they removed the film that obscures our nature, and penetrated at once into the secret recesses of the bosom :thus intimate with the springs of action, they never laboured to depict the progress of the passion; they struck at once the chord which vibrated to the heart, and left the rest to imagination and feeling. They were philosophers, too, and that of the highest order: philosophy was with them what Milton describes it,

Musical as is Apollo's lute:

and their language, in every pause in the action, or in its progress, where the character, or where circumstances would admit, abounded with the sweetest and most delicious poetry: for its boldest flights,

This visible nature, and this common world,
Were all too narrow:

But when they entered the quiet scenes of domestic life, they found sympathies in every boşom. But on this subject the editor could write

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