before Elizabeth came to the throne of England. He was a sprightly country lad when first known, who had excited some attention by his talent at versifying. In some wild frolic, he trespassed on the huntinggrounds of a rich neighbor. This indiscretion was followed up by a lampoon on the same gentleman. There was much scurrility in his satire, at that time, but no great proofs of genius. The subject of the verse was indignant, and threatening vengeance, young Shakspeare fled to London, and probably, went directly to the theatre, for he had a townsman on the boards, and perhaps a relation. The story of his holding horses at the door of the theatre, or bearing torches to light the lovers of the drama to their seats, is all done away with by the late commentaries upon his works. These were the gossipings of his early admirers, who loved the marvellous changes in the destinies of men. The probability is that he took some small employment in the business of the stage, until his talents as a dramatic writer became in some measure developed. He was born 1564, was eighteen years of age, or more, when he went to London, and in five years, some say seven, he was distinguished as a dramatic writer; so that his progress must have been rapid. The queen was fond of plays, but the dramatic writers of a previous age had been wretched, and any thing that bore the marks of nature, or genius, was, in the nascent growth of the stage, readily discovered, and acknowledged. He lived easily, that is, comfortably, and on acquiring a competency, retired to his native village, satisfied with what he had done; but heaven did not suffer him long to enjoy his well earned ease, for he died on his birthday, April 23, 1616, aged 52. There were but eleven

of his plays in print at his death; nor were his plays collected until seven years after this period. During the whole of the seventeenth century there were but four editions of his plays printed. He was admired by the court in the reign of James, and Charles the first and second. Our ancestors, particularly the puritans who came to this country, did not favor the drama in any shape or form, but engaged themselves to put down all theatricals, although, in Christian days, these dramas were first got up by the appendages of religious institutions. It was until nearly or quite a century had elapsed from the death of Shakspeare, before we find a quotation from his works in any American author; and strange as it may seem, in about half a century after Shakspeare's death, we hear the great John Dryden gravely saying, that Shakspeare was growing obsolete. They then did not feel what we do, that the pyramids will crumble to the dust, and the Nile be dry, and the Ethiop change his skin, and the leopard his spots, before Shakspeare will grow obsolete with us. He looked on man, and at once became master of the inmost recesses of his soul, as it were by intuition. He saw the defects of character at once, as well as the brighter parts; and all the advantages, as well as the absurdities of customs and laws, he struck off as though each one had been the study of his life. There is no variety of character in the lists of men, that he did not portray at full length, or give its semblance by profile, glance, or shadow. Sometimes he painted with care, and at other times he traced with a hurried, but unerring hand. The Dramatic Muse brought him to the great fountain of her inspirations, and as he bent to quaff the waters, he saw all the natural, moral, politi

cal, and intellectual world, reflected in the pure mirror, which attracted his vision; aye, and other worlds beyond this, were there also-for he "exhausted worlds, and then imagined new."

The English language was at that time copious, and rich, but not precisely fixed; nor was the philosophy of its etymology very distinctly understood.

Shakspeare was, classically speaking, an uneducated man, for he had not been allowed to drink of the sweet fountains of ancient learning; but he lived at a period when much of this literature had been done into English, by learned men. He had devoured all the tales, romances, legends, and novels, that were to be found in English; nor did his reading stop there; he was also deeply read in such histories as were then extant, and he particularly studied biography. He is seldom wrong in an incident, act, or a matter of fact. He sometimes takes liberties with both, but he clearly shows you that he is master of both. When Shakspeare was a schoolboy, the press had been teeming with vernacular literature-either original productions or translations--for a century, and he had the advantage of all this. These works were sufficient to set him to thinking and writing, and his mind was free from all shackles. He knew nothing of the logic of the schoolmen, nor was he bound to regard their rules. He was indebted to no Alma Mater for nursing him in learning.

Shakspeare took his words from the common people, that is from all classes in the busy scenes of life, and from those books written for popular reading. He had but little assistance from dictionaries, for but few had turned their attention to the making of dictionaries, nor could this be expected, while a language was

fluctuating. The memory of the poet was richly stored with words-good, domestic, household words—in his mother tongue, and he had enough of the grammar of it, for all his purposes. His thoughts were all new creations, however much he might be indebted to old ones for begetting them; and he clothed them as the fallen ones did themselves in paradise—with a fig-leaf, a lion's skin, or any thing they chose, or considered best for the purpose; and his taste has stood the test of every age since his own. He understood human nature, and he wisely wrote for two purposes, in some sort to please those of his own times, and to secure all those who should come after him. With Shakspeare, posthumous fame never seemed to be a passion. He rather felt sure of it, than panted after it; he that could so well judge of the present and the past, could easily see what was to come. He took no pains for monument, or epitaph, but simply said to those he left behind him, spare my bones. His mental strength seemed to be used as playfully as the physical strength of the Nazarite, who chose to slay the Philistines with a jaw bone of an ass, rather than draw his sword-and Shakspeare preferred to kill his enemies with a gibe, rather than with an argument. Samson's power only crushed his enemies-Shakspeare's gave distinct, and certain immortality to his friends, and all those he chose to consider worth preserving.

Other men share the throes of composition; and even those which are dedicated to Momus, and all the laughter-loving train, have some lines of mental melancholy about them. Not so with Shakspeare. Yet to suppose that those productions were not of profound thought, would, indeed, be idle. He meditated, not only

at noon, in the field, but in the dark watches of the night. He read nature, from season to season, and man in every hour of his existence; but there was about his doing this, the mild complacency of a superior being, not the swollen muscle, and bursting veins of the gladiator; nor was it ever known that he rolled his eye in frenzy, although he glanced from heaven to earth, and answered his own description of a poet, as to the mental part of it.

"And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation, and a name."

This was all done by Shakspeare, without effort; or at least without the appearance of it. The ancients made Apollo calm and composed in all his deeds; no agitation ever was seen in the actions of the far-darting Apollo. So of Shakspeare; he never foamed, or was cast to the earth; or wildly gazed on the heavens, or threw up ejaculations to superior powers; but he went on in his own pathway, as though he was only the humble, but true minister of Deity, proclaiming just thoughts, and wholesome precepts to man. He was fed by no ravens, nor asked, or expected a car of fire.

A well regulated stage may be likened to a CAMERA LUCIDA, in which one desirous of taking minute resemblances of man, in every form of his character, may be indulged. Shakspeare saw that the stage, which should "hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature," did not, in ignorant hands, give precise images of things, and he set about reforming this altogether;