tions to transmit every memorial of their worth. We are taught from our earliest infancy to lisp with almost veneration the names of Washington and Franklin. We are proud to call them countrymen, and guard their reputation with a jealous eye and faithfully teach our children the invaluable lesson. With juster pride, may we claim alliance with those Heaven-born spirits, and with deeper reverence may we guard and transmit their virtues, whose bright course has given us higher apprehensions of the destiny and dignity of man, and kindled within us a quenchless desire to attain the one, and fulfil the other.

MICHELL.

ON THE DEATH OF MISS FANNY V. APTHORP.

'Tis difficult to feel that she is dead.

Her presence, like the shadow of a wing
That is just given to the upward sky,
Lingers upon us. We can hear her voice,

And for her step we listen, and the eye

Looks for her wonted coming, with a strange,

Forgetful earnestness. We cannot feel

That she will no more come-that from her cheek
The delicate flush has faded, and the light
Dead in her soft dark eye, and on her lip,
That was so exquisitely pure, the dew
Of the damp grave has fallen! Who, so lov'd,
Is left among the living? Who hath walk'd
The world with such a winning loveliness,
And on its bright, brief journey, gather'd up
Such treasures of affection? She was lov'd
Only as idols are. She was the pride
Of her familiar sphere-the daily joy
Of all who on her gracefulness might gaze,
And, in the light and music of her way,

Have a companion's portion. Who could feel,
While looking upon beauty such as hers,
That it would ever perish! It is like
The melting of a star into the sky
While you are gazing on it, or a dream

In its most ravishing sweetness rudely broken.

SHAKSPEARE.

THERE is not a more curious subject of speculation, than the origin and progress of literary fame. Sometimes it bursts out in a sudden blaze, dazzling the understandings of men with unexpected splendor; sometimes it kindles with a gradual flame, and grows, by degrees, steady, strong and brilliant, till, from being unseen or disregarded, it fixes the attention of all; and sometimes, like the sepulchral lamp, it burns long amid damps and darkness, till some lucky accident discovers to the admiration of mankind that unextinguishable brightness, which defies obscurity, neglect, and even time itself.

Such, in general terms, is the story of literary celebrity; but as no general terms are comprehensive enough to embrace the infinite variety of nature, the history of every great writer's reputation has peculiarities of its own. This is the case with Shakspeare. He was known and acknowledged, in his own times, as the great master of the English drama, but neither himself nor his contemporaries seem to have considered the fame of this preeminence a matter of much consequence. Shakspeare himself appears to have trusted his reputation, without anxiety, to the traditions of the theatre e; and his most zealous admirers, content with the applauses called forth by every successive representation of his dramas, suffered the most remarkable productions of English literature long to lie hid in the obscurity of play-house manuscripts.

The few plays which were printed during the poet's life, those precious quartos so eagerly sought by all book collectors, were published, probably, without the care or knowledge of their author, and were, doubtless, soon confounded with the other pamphlets, prosaic and poetical, with which the English press teemed, even so long ago as the age of Elizabeth. The first secure foundations of Shakspeare's fame were laid seven years after his death, by the gratitude of the players. They published a complete collection of his dramas, deformed, indeed, with a thousand errors and corruptions, but copied, probably, with tolerable fidelity from the only existing manuscripts.

The closing of the play-houses, and the dispersion of the players, which happened not many years after, put a final period to the celebrity of many authors of the first school of English dramatists. Their plays had never been published at all, or only published in separate pamphlets, and when the stage ceased to keep them before the public eye, they soon dropped out of notice. But Shakspeare was destined to a better fate; his works were printed, and though his contemporaries were far from supposing him the great poet he has been esteemed by after times, he doubtless had many readers

and many admirers. The ever-memorable Hales of Eton maintained in a company of wits, that whatever sublime or beautiful passages might be produced from the ancient poets, he could point out in Shakspeare corresponding passages of at least equal excellence : Milton, in one of his early poems, expresses his admiration in lines like these:

What needs my Shakspeare, for his honor'd bones

The labor of an age in piled stones,

Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid,

Under a starry-pointing pyramid?

Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,

What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment,

Hast built thyself a live-long monument ;

and, at a later period, after a new era in English literature had begun, Dryden, in his Essay on Dramatic Poetry, praised "the man who of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul," in a style of eulogium perfect enough to fill all succeeding panegyrists with despair.

Such was the testimony of scholars and poets; but this testimony must not be received without some abatement; for when Milton, in his preface to Sampson Agonistes, after enumerating a variety of facts in honor of the drama, tells us "this is mentioned to vindicate tragedy from the small esteem, or rather infamy, which, in the account of many, it undergoes at this day, with other common interludes; happening through the poet's error of intermixing comic stuff with tragic, sadness and gravity; or introducing trivial and vulgar persons, which by all judicious hath been counted absurd; and brought in without discretion, corruptly to gratify the people ;"—all may see, under the disguise of general censure, a direct condemnation of Shakspeare. And what sturdy admirer of our great dramatist will allow that Milton's poetical creed is quite orthodox, when, at the close of the same preface, he mentions "Eschylus, Sophocles and Euripides as the three tragic poets unequalled yet by any, and the best rule to all who endeavor to write tragedy."

As for Dryden, he was too much a panegyrist by profession to praise by halves. It is not always easy to discover his real sentiments, but with all the applauses which he lavishes on Shakspeare, he seems to have regarded him more as a wonderful child, than as a perfect master of the dramatic art. He was too deeply versed in French criticism to admit Shakspeare's claim to a rank among classic writers; and he thought it no inexcusable arrogance to assist in altering his plays, and accommodating them, as the wits of that age expressed it, to the present civilized state of the English stage. The stage, indeed, at this time, was so much the patron of foreign refinements, that Shakspeare's plays never found a place there till

they had undergone some such transformation as has been just alluded to; and, of those who studied them in the closet, the number could not have been large, nor the curiosity ardent; for, during the seventeenth century, the plays were only twice reprinted.

The publication of Rowe's edition makes an era in the history of Shakspeare's reputation. This was the first edition in which any attention had been paid to the correction of the press, or the arrangement of the text. It was not executed with remarkable skill, but the mere name of being the first editor of Shakspeare, is perhaps an honor more enviable than any fame which Rowe derives from his own dramas. About this time the reputation of the poet seems to have shot up with a sudden growth. The curiosity of the public was aroused; its attention was awakened; the plays began to be generally read, and edition succeeded edition in frequent succession. Such men as Pope, and Warburton, and Johnson, did not disdain to arrange the text, amend its corruptions, and clear its obscurities, while a host of minor critics dug amid the rubbish of forgotten literature for materials to illustrate difficult passages, and explain peculiar allusions. The plays were brought anew upon the stage, and the skill of Garrick was exerted to express, by action, the conceptions of the poet; to admire Shakspeare became the test of a true Englishman, and that fame, which had been, perhaps, hitherto, in some danger of being swept away by the stream of time, began now to be securely protected by national prejudice and prescriptive veneration.

The poet, however, did not obtain this universal homage, without many to object and gainsay. The critics talked long and loud of the violation of the unities, the absurdities of tragi-comedy, the neglect of decorum, the confusion of chronology, and the unauthorised intermixture of classic and Gothic fictions. These objections were warmly urged, but, as most of them are founded on a factitious system of taste, they have long ceased to have much influence. It seems now, to be admitted on all hands, that the English Drama is a distinct species of composition, differing entirely, in its origin and theory, from the drama of the ancients, and to be judged and estimated by general principles of taste, and not by the rules of Greek or French criticism.

That the construction of the English drama is open to some objections, must be admitted, and though these objections were waived, it will be impossible to deny that Shakspeare, in the execution of his plays often violates the principles of good taste. For, notwithstanding he possessed a most delicate perception of poetic beauty, a soul alike capable of the deepest pathos, the grandest sublimity and the most exquisite humor, yet taste, like all those other powers of the mind, which are not so much essential to existence, as of use to adorn

This as

and elevate life, is not matured without artificial assistance. sistance Shakspeare never had. He was not bred a scholar and consequently had no models to study; for in his age the English language would supply none. English literature was then in its infancy, and though the poems and novels, the chronicles, ballads, romances, and translations, which he appears to have read so diligently, might fill his mind with images and furnish him with ample materials for poetry, they could advance him but little towards a philosophical knowledge of the art of writing. The consideration of these circumstances, will enable us to account for Shakspeare's faults, without falling into the vulgar error of supposing, that between taste and genius there is some natural contrariety; that the impetuosity and extravagance of the one, and the regularity and correctness of the other are as distinct and incompatible as the elements of fire and water. It is not so. Taste, actual or potential, is ever the companion of genius, because to acquire a skill in solving literary problems, is but one way of exerting those vigorous mental powers, which genius implies. It is true, that taste originates in an intrinsic perception of beauty: But in this respect, nature seems never to be defective. False notions on matters of taste, are never owing to a natural insensibility to the difference between beauty and deformity; they arise either from lack of judgment, of acuteness to discriminate, of comprehensiveness to combine, or else, from want of a sufficient familiarity with the objects on which taste is exercised, and a sufficient acquaintance with what may be called, the philosophy of literature. Writers on jurisprudence tell us, that law is the perfection of reason: Lex est summa ratio. Lord Coke affirms, that the common law itself is nothing else but reason; but by this, as he assures us, he must be intended to mean, not the undisciplined reason of unlearned men, but a reason, in some respects, artificial, attained by long study, observation and experience, and accommodated to the artificial state of human society. So it is with the rules of good writing. Criticism is founded on principles implanted by nature in every bosom, but in its details, it is a study and an art, and like other arts, can only be acquired by a regular course of preliminary discipline. Shakspeare sinned against good taste, not by the fault of nature, but because, from the circumstances of his life, he possessed little opportunity of studying the theory of literary composition; and perhaps, was not very anxious to improve the opportunity, which he did possess. It is not improbable, that he looked upon poetry with the disgust, with which men are apt to regard the trade by which they live, and that when once his task was done, the players satisfied, and the audience pleased, he felt little inclined to spend his leisure amid the dry details of criticism, or in abstract inquiries into the nature of beauty.