ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. BY EDWIN P. WHIPPLE. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. SECOND EDITION. BOSTON: TICKNOR, REED, AND FIELDS. M DCCC LI. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, BY EDWIN P. WHIPPLE, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Stereotyped by BOSTON. ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. OLD ENGLISH DRAMATISTS.* AMONG the English critics of the present century, none was entitled to speak with more authority of the Old English Dramatists than Charles Lamb. His letters and essays show that his choicest hours were spent in their company. Their scenes and characters did not merely pass before his mind for review, but seemed to run into his blood and imagination, and blend with his life. He was the representative of the Elizabethan age to the nineteenth century, and enforced the claims of his stalwart veterans to attention with a nicety of criticism which had the sureness of a fine instinct. The notes to his Specimens, quaint, keen, and short, are good examples of penetrating and interpretative criticism. The fine fusion in Lamb's mind of humor and imagination gives to these meagre notices a peculiar raciness and *Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of Shak speare. With Notes. By Charles Lamb. New York: Wiley & Putnam. 1845. 16mo. pp. 448. Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth. By William Hazlitt. New York: Wiley & Putnam. 16mo. pp. 216. - North American Review, July, 1846. |