"They laid her on a couch soft,
And with a sheet warmed oft,
Her cold breast began to heat,
Her heart also to flack a and beat.
This master hath her every joint
With certain oil and balm anoint,
And put a liquor in her mouth,
Which is to few clerks couth",
So that she 'covereth at the last.
And first her eyen up she cast;

And when she more of strength caught, Her arms both forth she straught, Held up her hand, and piteously She spake, and said, Ah! where am I? Flack-flutter. b Couth-known. e Straught-stretched.

"The treason and the time is shape,
So fell it that this churlish knape
Hath led this maiden where he would
Upon the strand, and what she should
She was a drad; and he out braid
A rusty sword, and to her said,
Thou shalt be dead: alas, quoth she,
Why shall I so? So thus, quoth he,
My lady Dionise hath bade

Thou shalt be murder'd in this stede.
This maid then for fear shrihte",
And for the love of God all-might
She pray'th, that for a little stounde
She might kneel upon the ground
Toward the heaven, for to crave
Her woeful soul that she may save.
And with this noise and with this cry
Out of a barge fast by,

Which hid was there on scomerfare,

Men start out, and weren ware

Of this felon and he to go,
And she began to cry thod,
Braid-started, drew.

• Stound-moment.

b Shrihte-shrieked. d Tho-then.

She goeth her down, there as he lay,
Where that she harpeth many a lay,
And like an angel sang withal.
But he no more than the wall
Took heed of anything he heard.

And when she saw that he so ferde",
She falleth with him into words,
And telleth him of sundry bordes.
And asketh him demands strange,
Whereof she made his heart change;
And to her speech his ear he laid,
And hath marvel of that she said.
For in proverb and in problem

She spake, and bade he should deme
In many a subtile question;
But he for no suggestion

Which toward him she could stered,
He would not oe word answer,
But as a madman at the last,
His head weeping away he cast,
And half in wroth he bade her go:
But yet she would nought do so;
And in the dark forth she goeth
Till she him toucheth, and he wrothef.
And after her with his hand

He smote: and thus when she him found
Diseased, courteously she said,-
Avoy, my lord, I am a maid;

And if ye wist what I am,

And out of what lineage I came,

Ye would not be so salvage.

With that he sober'th his courage,

And put away his heavy cheer.

But of them two a man may lere
What is to be so sibbe of blood:
None wist of other how it stood,
And yet the father at last
His heart upon this maid cast,
That he her loveth kindly;
And yet he wist never why,

But all was known ere that they went ;
For God, which wot their whole intent,
Their hearts both he discloseth.
This king unto this maid opposeth,
And asketh first, what is her name,
And where she learned all this game,
And of what kin that she was come?
And she, that hath his words nome 1,
Answereth, and saith, My name is Thaise,
That was some time well at ease.
In Tharse I was forth draw and fed,
There learned I till I was sped,
Of that I can: my father eke,

I not where that I should him seek:
He was a king men told me.
My mother drown'd was in the sea.
From point to point all she him told
That she hath long in heart hold,

And never durst make her moan
But only to this lord alone,
To whom her heart cannot hele',
Turn it to woe, turn it to weal,
Turn it to good, turn it to harm,

And he then took her in his arm;
But such a joy as he then made
Was never seen: thus be they glad
That sorry hadden be to fornb.
From this day forth fortune hath sworn
To set them upward on the wheel:

So goeth the world, now woe, now weal."

"With worthy knights environed, The king himself hath abandoned Into the temple in good intent. The door is up, and in he went, Where as, with great devotion Of holy contemplation

Within his heart, he made his shrift,
And after that a rich gift

He off'reth with great reverence;
And there in open audience

Of them that stooden all about
He told them, and declareth out
His hap, such as him is befall:
There was no thing forget of all.
His wife, as it was God's grace,
Which was professed in the place
As she that was abbess there,
Unto his tale hath laid her ear.
She knew the voice, and the visage:
For pure joy, as in a rage,

She stretch'd unto him all at once,
And fell a swoon upon the stones
Whereof the temple-floor was paved.
She was anon with water laved,
Till she came to herself again,
And then she began to seyn-

Ah, blessed be the high soondes, That I may see mine husband, Which whilom he and I were one." *

*

"Attaint they weren by the law,

And doomed for to hang, and draw, And brent, and with the wind to blow, That all the world it might know.

And upon this condition,

The doom in execution

Was put anon without fail.

And every man hath great marvel Which heard tellen of this chance, And thanketh God's purveyance, Which doth mercy forth with justice. Slain is the murd'rer, and murd'ress, Through very truth of righteousness; And through mercy safe is simplessed Of her, whom mercy preserveth,

Thus hath he well, that well deserveth."

"IF the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather." These are the words which, in relation to the 'Venus and Adonis,' Shakspere addressed, in 1593, to the Earl of Southampton. Are we to accept them literally? Was the Venus and Adonis' the first production of Shakspere's imagination? Or did he put out of his view those dramatic performances which he had then unquestionably produced, in deference to the critical opinions which regarded plays as works not belonging to "invention?" We think that he used the words in a literal sense. We regard the Venus and Adonis' as the production of a very young man, improved, perhaps, consider ably in the interval between its first composition and its publication, but distinguished by peculiarities which belong to the wild luxuriance of youthful power, such power, however, as few besides Shakspere have ever possessed.

A deep thinker and eloquent writer, Julius Charles Hare, thus describes "the spirit of self-sacrifice," as applied to poetry:

"The might of the imagination is manifested by its launching forth from the petty creek, where the accidents of birth moored it, into the wide ocean of being,—by its going abroad into the world around, passing into whatever it meets with, animating it, and becoming one with it. This complete union and identification of the poet with his poem,-this suppression of his own individual insulated consciousness, with its narrowness of thought and pettiness of feeling,—is what we admire in the great masters of that which for this reason we justly call classical poetry, as representing that which is symbolical and universal, not that which is merely occasional and peculiar. This gives them that majestic calmness which still breathes upon us from the statues of their gods. This invests

their works with that lucid transparent atmosphere wherein every form stands out in perfect definiteness and distinctness, only beautified by the distance which idealises it. This has delivered those works from the casualties of time and space, and has lifted them up like stars into the pure firmament of thought, so that they do not shine on one spot alone, nor fade like earthly flowers, but journey on from clime to clime, shedding the light of beauty on generation after generation. The same quality, amounting to a total extinction of his own selfish being, so that his spirit became a mighty organ through which Nature gave utterance to the full diapason of her notes, is what we wonder at in our own great dramatist, and is the groundwork of all his other powers: for it is only when purged of selfishness that the intellect becomes fitted for receiving the inspirations of genius." a

What Mr. Hare so justly considers as the great moving principle of "classical poetry," what he further notes as the pre-eminent characteristic of "our own great dramatist," is abundantly found in that great dramatist's earliest work. Coleridge was the first to point out this pervading quality in the 'Venus and Adonis;' and he has done this so admirably, that it would be profanation were we to attempt to elucidate the point in any other than his own words :—

"It is throughout as if a superior spirit, more intuitive, more intimately conscious, even than the characters themselves, not only of every outward look and act, but of the flux and reflux of the mind in all its subtlest thoughts and feelings, were placing the whole before our view; himself meanwhile unparticipating in the passions, and actuated only by that pleasurable excitement

a The Victory of Faith; and other Sermons.' By Julius Charles Hare, M.A. 1840. P. 277.