has been deceived-that a man playing fully written, displays in the beginning many parts can be perfect in all. And much of the descriptive power and the yet in what field has Buchanan not ex-rich flowing garb of style which distincelled? We have seen him already as a guished Livy; and toward the close, is good dramatist, a first-rate satirist, a animated with all that spirit of subliworthy translator of the highest and ho- mated partisanship, and all that force liest poetry, and an eloquent expounder and fervour of moral indignation, which of the principles of civil and religious mark the pages of Tacitus, and, in a liberty. But he was, besides, a lyric and subordinate degree, of Sallust. elegiac poet of no ordinary merit. IIis Altogether, when we consider Buchaode on the First of May is of that high nan's almost universal genius and colossal order of the beautiful, which, as if by na- claims, we are forced keenly to regret tural process, buds into the sublime. His that we have not had time to do greater elegies, with less tenderness than their justice to his merits; that we cannot, in name would import, are singularly finished supply of our necessary lack of service, and felicitous. Even his juvenile produc- refer our readers to any better life of him tions, highly coloured as they are, and than that of Irving, which, though full of too redolent of joy and youth, are full of facts, has little true insight, and less elopoetry. And his history-although not quence or enthusiasm; and that the lanprobably what it might have been had he guage in which he has written his best written it at his leisure amidst academic works is likely long to form a "false mebowers, or possessed a profounder insight dium" between the Scottish public and into the principles of historical composi- one of the very greatest of their men of tion-besides being throughout beauti-genius.

SHAKSPERE.-A LECTURE.*

Ir a clergyman, thirty years ago, had niality, breadth, and power, in the midst announced a lecture on Shakspere, he of our society and literature. He is might, as a postscript, have announced among us like an unseen ghost, colourthe resignation of his charge, if not the ing our language, controlling our impresabandonment of his office. Times are sions, if not our thoughts, swaying our now changed, and men are changed along imaginations, sweetening our tempers, with them. The late Dr Hamilton of refining our tastes, purifying our manLeeds, one of the most pious and learned ners, and effecting all this by the simple clergymen in England, has left, in his magic of his genius, and through a me"Nugæ Literariæ," a genial paper on dium-that of dramatic writing and reShakspere, and was never, so far as I presentation-originally the humblest, know, challenged thereanent. And if you ask me one reason of this curious change, I answer, it is the long-continued presence of the spirit of Shakspere, in all its ge

and not yet the highest, form in which poetry and passion have chosen to exhibit themselves. Waiving, at present, the consideration of Shakspere in his formthe dramatist, let us look at him now in * This having been originally delivered as a lecture, we have decided that it should his essence the poet. But, first, does retain the shape. "Shakspere: a Sketch," any one ask, What is a poet? What is would look, and be, a ludicrous idea. As the ideal of the somewhat indefinite, but well a mountain in a flower-pot, as Shakspere in a single sketch. A sketch seeks to draw, at least, an outline of a whole. From a lecture, so much is not necessarily expected.

VOL I.-B

large and swelling term-poet? I answer, the greatest poet is the man who most roundly, clearly, easily, and strikingly reflects, represents, and reproduces, in an

does not divide and analyse his light— but simply shows him as he appears to her in the full crown-royal of his beams. It follows still farther, that the attitude of the true poet is exceedingly simple and sublime. He is not an inquirer, asking curious questions at the universe-not a tyrant speculator, applying to it the splendid torture of investigation; his attitude is that of admiration, reception, and praise. He loves, looks, is enlightened, and shines -even as a planet receives and renders back the light of his parent sun.

imaginative form, his own sight or obser- | former tries to trace things to their causes, vation, his own heart or feeling, his own and to see them as a great naked abstract history or experience, his own memory or scheme, poetry catches them as they are, knowledge, his own imagination or dream in the concrete, and with all their verdure -sight, heart, history, memory, and ima- and flush about them; for even philosogination, which, so far as they are faith-phical truths, ere poetry will reflect them, fully represented from his consciousness, must be personified into life, and thus do also reflect the consciousness of gene- fitted to stand before her mirror. The ral humanity. The poet is more a mir- ocean does not act as a prism to the sun ror than a maker; he may, indeed, unite with his reflective power others, such as that of forming, infusing into his song, and thereby glorifying a particular creed or scheme of speculation; but, just as surely as a rainbow, rising between two opposing countries or armies, is no bulwark, so the real power of poetry is not in conserving, nor in resisting, nor in supporting, nor in destroying, but in meekly and fully reflecting, and yet re-creating and beautifying all things. Poetry, said Aristotle, is imitation; this celebrated aphorism is only true in one acceptation. If, then, the greatest poet be the widIf it mean that poetry is in the first in- est, simplest, and clearest reflector of nastance prompted by a conscious imitation ture and man, surely we may claim this of the beautiful, which gradually blossoms high honour for Shakspere—the eighth into the higher shape of unconscious re- wonder of the world. "Of all men," says semblance, we demur. But if by imita- Dryden, "he had the largest and most tion is meant the process by which love comprehensive soul!" You find everyfor the beautiful in art or nature, at first thing included in him, just as you find silent and despairing as the child's af- that the blue sky folds around all things, fection for the star, strengthens, and and after every new discovery made in strengthens still, till the admired quality her boundless domains, seems to retire is transfused into the very being of the quietly back into her own greatness, like admirer, who then pours it back in elo- a queen, and to say, "I am richer than quence or in song, so sweetly and melo- all my possessions." Shakspere never diously, that it seems to be flowing from an original fountain in his own breast; if this be the meaning of the sage when he says that poetry is imitation, he is surely right. Poetry is just the saying Amen, with a full heart and a clear voice, to the varied symphonies of nature, as they echo through the vaulted and solemn aisles of the poet's own soul.

It follows, from this notion of poetry, that in it there is no such thing as absolute origination or creation; its Be-Light simply evolves the element which already has existed amidst the darkness-it does not call it into existence. It follows, again, that the grand distinction between philosophy and poetry is, that while the

suggests the thought of being exhausted, any more than the sigh of an Æolian lyre, as the breeze is spent, intimates that the mighty billows of the air shall surge no more. Responsive as such a lyre to all the sweet or strong influences of nature, she must cease to speak, ere he can cease to respond. I can never think of that great brow of his, but as a clear lake-looking-glass, on which, when you gaze, you see all passions, persons, and hearts: here, suicides striking their own breasts, there, sailors staggering upon drunken shores; here, kings sitting in purple, and there, clowns making mouths behind their backs; here, demons in the shape of men, and there, angels in the

form of women; here, heroes bending | though it had not yet, like him, mounted their mighty bows, and there, hangmen its chariot of general circulation, and been adjusting their greasy ropes; here, witches carried in triumphal progress through the picking poisons, and culling infernal sim- land. The copies of the Scriptures, for ples for their caldron, and there, joiners the most part, were confined to the liand weavers enacting their piece of very braries of the learned, or else chained in tragical mirth, amid the moonlight of the churches. Conceive the impetus given to "Midsummer Night's Dream;" here, the poetical genius of the country, by the statesmen uttering their "ancient saws," sudden discovery of this spring of loftiest and there, watchmen, finding "modern poetry-conceive it by supposing that instances" amid the belated revellers of Shakspere's works had been buried for the streets; here, misanthropes cursing ages, and been dug up now. Literature their day, and there, pedlars making in general had revived; and the soul of merry with the lasses and lads of the vil- man, like an eagle newly fledged, and lage fair; here, Mooncalfs, like Caliban, looking from the verge of her nest, was throwing forth eloquent curses and blas-smelling from afar many a land of prophemy, and there, maidens like Miranda, mise, and many a field of victory. Add sole-sitting" by summer seas, beautiful to this, that a New World had recently as foam-bells of the deep; here, fairies been discovered; and if California and dancing like motes of glory across the Australia have come over us like a sumstage, and there, hush! it is the grave mer's (golden) cloud, and made not only that has yawned, and, lo ! the buried ma- the dim eye of the old miser gleam with jesty of Denmark has joined the motley joy, and his hand, perhaps, relax its hold throng, which pauses for a moment to of present, in the view of prospective gold, tremble at his presence. Such the spec- but made many a young bosom, too, leap tacle presented on that great mirror! at the thought of adventure upon those How busy it is, and yet how still! How marvellous shores, and woven, as it were, melancholy, and yet how mirthful! Ma- a girdle of virgin gold round the solid gical as a dream, and yet sharp and dis- globe-what must have been the impulse tinct as a picture! How fluctuating, and the thrill, when first the bars of yet how fixed! "It trembles, but it ocean were broken up, when all customcannot pass away." It is the world-ary landmarks fled away, like the islands the world of every age—the miniature of of the Apocalyptic vision, and when in the universe!

their room a thousand lovely dreams seemed retiring, and beckoning as they retired, toward isles of palms, and valleys of enchantment, and mountains ribbed with gold, and seas of perfect peace and sparkling silver, and in the distance immeasurable savannahs and forests hid by the glowing west; and when, month after month, travellers and sailors were return

The Times of Shakspere require a minute's notice in our hour's analysis of his genius. They were times of a vast upheaving in the public mind. Protestantism, that strong man-child, had newly been born on the Continent, and was making wild work in his cradle. Popery, the ten-horned monster, was dying, but dying hard; while over England there ing to testify by their tales of wonder lay what might be called a "dim religious light"-being neither the gross darkness of medieval Catholicism, nor the naked glare of Nonconformity-a light highly favourable to the exercise of imagination -in which dreams seemed realised, and in which realities were softened with the haze of dreams. The Book of God had been brought forth, like Joseph from his The Life of Shakspere I do not seek to dungeon, freed from prison attire, al-write, and do not profess to understand,

that such dreams were true, must not such an ocean of imaginative influence have deposited a rich residuum of genius? And that verily it did, the names of four men belonging to this period are enough to prove: these are, need I say? Edmund Spenser, Walter Raleigh, Francis Bacon, and William Shakspere.

"O Cuckoo, shall I call thee bird, Or but a wandering voice?"

after all that has been written regarding | but that he saw, and showed, and loved, it. Still he seems to me but a shade, in proportion to its degree, so much of without shape, limit, or local habitation; humanity as all possessed. Nature, too, having nothing but power, beauty, and he had watched with a wide yet keen grandeur. I cannot reconcile him to life, eye. Alike the spur of the rooted pinepresent or past. Like a brownie, he has tree and the "grey" gleam of the willow done the work of his favourite household, leaf drooping over the death-stream of unheard and unseen. His external his- Ophelia (he was the first in poetry, says tory is, in his own language, a blank; his Hazlitt, to notice that the leaf is grey internal, a puzzle, save as we may dubi- only on the side which bends down)— ously gather it from the escapes of his the nest of the temple-haunting martSonnets, and the masquerade of his Plays. let with his "loved mansionry," and the eagle eyrie which "buildeth on the cedar's top, and dallies with the wind and scorns the sun" the forest of Arden, and the "blasted heath of Forres❞—the "still vexed Bermoothes, and the woods of Crete"-"the paved fountains," "rushing brooks," "pelting rivers," "the beached margents of the sea," "sweet summer buds," "hoary-headed frosts," "childing autumn," "angry winter," the "sun robIndeed, so deep still are the uncer- bing the vast sea," and the "moon her tainties surrounding the history of Shak-pale fire snatching from the sun:”. spere, that I sometimes wonder that the process applied by Strauss to the Life of our Saviour has not been extended to his. A Life of Shakspere, on this worthy model, would be a capital exercise for some aspiring sprig of Straussism!

Say, rather, a munificent and modest benefactor, he has knocked at the door of the human family at night; thrown in inestimable wealth as if he had done a guilty thing; and the sound of his feet dying away in the distance is all the tidings he has given of himself.

"Flowers of all hues

Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram,
The marigold that goes to bed with the sun,
And with him rises weeping; daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and
take

dim,

The winds of March with beauty; violets
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath-pale primroses,
That die unmarried ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength—

bold oxlips and
The Crown Imperial-lilies of all kinds"-

I pass to speak of the qualities of his genius. First of these, I name a quality to which I have already alluded-his universality. He belongs to all ages, all lands, all ranks, all professions, all characters, and all intellects. And why? because his eye pierced through all that was conventional, and fastened on all such are a few of the natural objects that was eternal in man. He knew that which the genius of Shakspere has transin humanity there was one heart, one planted into his own garden, and covered nature, and that "God had made of one with the dew of immortality. He someblood all nations who dwell on the face times lingers beside such lovely things, of the earth." He saw the same heart but more frequently he touches them palpitating through a myriad faces-the as he is hurrying on to an object. He same nature shining amid all varieties of paints as does the lightning, which, while customs, manners, languages, and laws-rushing to its aim, shows in fiery relief the same blood rolling red and warm all intermediate objects. Like an arbelow innumerable bodies, dresses, and rowy river, his mark is the sea, but every forms. It was not, mark you, the uni- cloud, tree, and tower is reflected on the versality of indifference-it was not that he loved all beings alike-it was not that he liked Iago as well as Imogen, Bottom or Bardolph as well as Hamlet or Othello;

way, and serves to beautify and to dignify the waters. Frank, all-embracing, and unselecting is the motion of his genius. Like the sun-rays, which, secure in their

own purity and directness, pass fearlessly | dividual, but of what is universal in the through all deep, dark, intricate, or un- race; of what characterises, not a man, holy places-equally illustrate the crest but man; not of their own individual of a serpent and the wing of a bird, pause genius, but of the Great Spirit moving on the summit of an ant-hillock as well within their minds. Yet what in reality as on the brow of Mont Blanc-take up is this but the unconsciousness for which as a little thing alike the crater of the the author, to whom Sterling is replying, volcano and the shed cone of the pine, contends? When we say that men of and after they have, in one wide charity, genius, in their highest moods, are unconembraced all shaped and sentient things, scious, we mean, not that these men become expend their waste strength and beauty the mere tubes through which a foreign upon the inane space beyond-thus does influence descends, but that certain emothe imagination of Shakspere count no tions or ideas so fill and possess them, as subject or object too low, and none too to produce temporary forgetfulness of high, for its comprehensive and incon- themselves, save as the passive though trollable sweep.

intelligent instruments of the feeling or I have named impersonality, as his the thought. It is true that afterwards next quality. The term seems strange self may suggest the reflection—the fact and rare the thing is scarcer still: I that we have been selected to receive and mean by it that Shakspere, when writ- convey such melodies proves our breadth ing, thought of nothing but his subject, and fitness-it is from the oak, not the never of himself. Snatching from an reed, that the wind elicits its deepest Italian novel, or an ill-translated Plu- music; but, in the first place, this thought tarch's Lives, the facts of his play, his never takes place at the same time with only question was, Can these dry bones the true afflatus, and is almost inconlive? How shall I impregnate them with sistent with its presence-it is a mere force, and make them fully express the after inference;—an inference, secondly, meaning and beauty which they contain? which is not always made; nay, thirdly, Many writers set to work in a very differ- an inference which is often rejected, when ent style. One in all his writings wishes the prophet, off the stool, feels tempted to magnify his own powers, and his soli- to regard with suspicion or shuddering tary bravo is heard resounding at the disgust the result of his raptured hour of close of every paragraph. Another wishes inspiration. Milton seems to have shrunk to imitate another writer a base ambi- back at the retrospect of the height he tion, pardonable only in children. A had reached in the "Paradise Lost," and third, scorning lavish imitation, wishes preferred his "Paradise Regained." Shakto emulate some one school or class of spere, having written his tragic miracles authors. A fourth writes deliberately under a more entire self-abandonment, and professedly ad captandum vulgus. became in his Sonnets, owing to a reflex A fifth, worn to dregs, is perpetually act of sagacity, aware of what feats he had wishing to imitate his former doings, done. Bunyan is carried on, through all like a child crying to get yesterday back the stages of his immortal pilgrimage, again. Shakspere, when writing, thought|like a child in the leading-strings of her no more of himself, or other authors, nurse, but, after looking back upon its than the Sun when shining thinks of contemplated course, begins, with all the Sirius, or of his own proud array of harmless vanity of a child (see the prefabeams. tory poem to the second part), to CROW This unconsciousness, or impersonality, over the achievement. Burns, while I have always held to be the highest style composing "Tam o' Shanter," felt little of genius. I am aware, indeed, of a subtle else than the animal rapture of the exciteobjection. It has been said by John ment; it dawned on him afterwards that Sterling, that men of genius are con- he had produced his finest poem. Thus scious, not of what is peculiar in the in- all gifted spirits do best when they know