This entire passage, terminating at “ howling,” is defi. cient in grammatical correctness, for it contains an antecedent not succeeded by a consequent: but is there a reader of taste who would wish it to be any thing but what it is? As for those barbarisms of the double negative and the double comparative, which Malone is studious to recall from the old copies into Shakspeare's text, I have already declared my conviction that they are falsely charged upon Shakspeare. They are not to be found in those effusions of his muse which issued from the press under his own immediate inspection; and they must assuredly be considered as the illiterate errors of an illiterate transcriber.

I could now easily, and the task would be delightful to me, produce examples, from the page of Shakspeare, of all the excellencies which I have attributed to his diction; of its sublimity, its force, its tenderness, its pathos, its picturesque character, its sweet and evervarying harmony. But I have already very far transgressed the limits prescribed to me in my volume; and I must restrain myself. When, therefore, I have cited, at the close of what I am now writing, the description by Jaques, in “ As you Like it,” of the seven ages of man, as an evidence of Shakspeare's power to touch the most familiar topics into poetry, as the Phrygian monarch could touch the basest substances into gold, I shall conclude this long and, as I fear, this fatiguing treatise on Shakspeare and his works, by asking if he be not a mighty genius, sufficiently illustrious and commanding to call forth the choice spirits of a learned and intellectual century to assert his greatness, and to march in his triumph to fame?

Yes, Master of the human heart! we own
Thy sovereign sway; and bow before thy throne:
Where, richly deck'd with laurels never sere,
It stands aloft, and baffles Time's career.
There warbles Poesy her sweetest song:
There the wild Passions wait, thy vassal throng.
There Love, there Hate, there Joy in turn presides;
And rosy Laughter holding both his sides.

At thy command the varied tumult rolls :
Now Pity melts, pow Terror chills our souls.
Now, as thou wavest thy wizard-rod, are seen
The Fays and Elves quick glancing o'er the green: '
And, as the moon her perfect orb displays, .
The little people sparkle in her rays.
There, mid the lightning's blaze, and whirlwind's howl,
On tbe scath'd heath the fatal Sisters scowl:
Or, as hell's caldron bubbles o'er the flame,
Prepare to do A DEED WITHOUT A NAME.

These are thy wonders, Nature's darling birth !
And Fame exulting bears thy name o'er earth.
There, where Rome's eagle never stoop'd for blood,
By hallow'd Ganges and Missouri's flood :
Where the bright eyelids of the Morn anclose;
And where Day's steeds in golden stalls repose ;
Thy peacefal triumphs spread; and mock the pride
Of Pella's Youth, and Julius slaughter-dyed.

In ages far remote, when Albion's state
Hath touch'd the mortal limit, mark'd by Fate :
When Arts and Science fly her naked shore :
And the world's Empress shall be great no more ·
Tben Australasia shall thy sway prolong;
And her rich cities echo with thy song.
There myriads still shall laugh, or drop the tear,
At Falstaff's humour, or the woes of Lear :
Man, wave-like, following man, thy powers adnire ;
And thou, my SHAKSPEARE, reign till time expire.

C. S.

NewsTEAD ABBEY,

Aug, 4th, 1825.

THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN.

Jaques.

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players : They have their exits, and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being SEVEN AGES.

with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school :

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow : Then, a SOLDIER ;

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard ;
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel ;
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cappon's mouth :

In fair round belly, with good capon lined,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances,
And so be plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd PANTALOON ;

With spectacles on nose, and poucb on side ;
His youthful hose well-saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in its sound : .