judicial taste of modern purists, the object of our idolatry will be converted into a king of dramatic shreds and patches. The evil arises from the practice of discussing the intricacies of that art without reference to the conditions under which it was evolved. Those which have been above-mentioned will go far to explain many difficulties, and especially the singular variations of power that are occasionally to be traced in one and the same drama. A few words on the general question may now be added. In one sense, that of being the delineator of the passions and character, Shakespeare was the greatest artist that ever lived, as he was also in melody, in humor, and in all kinds of dramatic expression. But in another and very usual meaning of that personal term, in that of being an elaborator intent on rendering his component work artistically faultless in the eye of criticism, he can hardly be thought to have even a slight claim to the title. When Ben Jonson told Drummond of Hawthornden, in 1619, that "Shakespeare wanted art," he referred no doubt to his general negligence in the latter respect, and perhaps especially to his occasional defects in construction. One of Shakespeare's most wonderful gifts was his unlimited power of a characterial invention to suit any kind of plot, no matter how ill-advised, and, at the same time harmonize with theatrical expediencies, however incongruous, which might have been considered by the managers or actors to have been essential to the maintenance of popularity. "His wit," observes the same Rare Ben, dissatisfied with what he no doubt thought a reckless mode of composition, "was in his own power;—would the rule of it had been so too!" It was natural that Jonson, with his reverence for classical models, should regard his

great contemporary's indifference to them with dismay. But Shakespeare, endowed with an universal genius, created his personages by unfettered instinct, and, mcst happily, the times and circumstances were alike favorable to the development of the dramatic power by which alone the perfect results of that genius could have been exhibited. Commencing his public life as an actor, he had the inestimable advantage of gaining a preliminary knowledge of all that was most likely to be effective on the stage, the then conventionalities of which, moreover, by their very simplicity, and notwithstanding one or two drawbacks, were eminently calculated for the fullest exercise of an author's poetic and imaginative faculties. Then there was a language which, having for some time past been emancipated from the influence of literal terminations, had attained a form that gave matchless facilities for the display of nervous expression, and this in the brightest period of earnest and vigorous English thought. That language found in Shakespeare its felicitous and unrivaled exponent, and although on occasion his words either imperfectly represent the thought or are philologically erroneous, becoming thus to mere readers inextricably obscure, it may be confidently averred that there is not one speech, the essential meanings of which, if it were properly delivered, would not have been directly intelligible to the auditory. He had also ready prepared to his hands the matured outward form of a drama, its personages and their histories, all waiting for the hand that was to endow them with grace and life. It was then his unconscious mission through the most effective agency, that of the stage, to interpret human nature to the people. That interpretation was fortunately neither cramped nor distorted by the necessity of

But

adherence to literary rule, while the popular tastes sanctioned its uncontrolled application to every variety of character, through all kinds of probable or improbable situation,—before fairy-land had been exiled, and the thunder of fie-foh-fum had lost its solemnity. Writing first for a living, and then for affluence, his sole aim was to please an audience, most of whom, be it remembered, were not only illiterate, but unable to either read or write. this very ignorance of the large majority of his public, so far from being a disadvantage, enabled him to disregard restrictive canons and the tastes of scholars,—to make that appeal to the heart and intellect which can only be universal when it reaches the intuitive perceptions of the lowliest, and by exhibiting his marvelous conceptions in the pristine form in which they had instinctively emanated, become the poet of nature instead of the poet of art, That Shakespeare wrote without effort, by inspiration not by design, was, so far as it has been recorded, the unanimous belief of his contemporaries and immediate successors. It was surely to this comprehensive truth, and not exclusively to the natural music of his verse, that Milton referred when, in two of the most exquisite lines respecting him that were ever penned, he speaks of Fancy's child, warbling "his native wood-notes wild." If those notes had been cabined by philosophy and methodically cultivated, they might have been as intrinsically powerful, but they would assuredly have lost much of their present charm.

It cannot be absolutely observed of Shakespeare, as it has been of another great poet, that he woke up one morning to discover that he was famous, but there is reason for believing that the publication of his Lucrece, in

the May of this year, 1594, almost immediately secured for its author a higher reputation than would then have been established by the most brilliant efforts of dramatic art. This magnificent poem, which was originally proposed to be entitled the Ravishment of Lucrece, must have been written after the dedication to Venus and Adonis, and before the entry of the former work at Stationers' Hall, that is to say, at some time between April, 1593, and May, 1594. There can be no doubt of the estimation in which it was held in the year of publication, the author of an elegy on Lady Helen Branch, 1594, including among our greater poetes,-"you that have writ of chaste Lucretia, whose death was witnesse of her spotlesse life;" and Drayton, in his Matilda, of the same date, speaking of Lucrece, "lately reviv'd to live another age." Shakespeare's new poem is also mentioned in Willobie's Avisa, published in September, 1594, the earliest contemporary work in which he is introduced by name; and in the following year, "Lucrecia-sweet Shakespeare,' is a marginal note to Polimanteia, 1595, one which implies that it was then considered his best work. Later references testify its continued appreciation, and it was received as the perfect exposition of woman's chastity, a sequel, or rather perhaps a companion, to the earlier one of her profligacy. The contemporaries of Shakespeare allude more than once to the two poems as being his most important works, and as those on which his literary distinction chiefly rested.

The prefixes to the Venus and Lucrece are, in the presence of so few biographical memorials, inestimable records of their author. The two dedications to Lord Southampton and the argument to the second work are the only

non-dramatic prose compositions of Shakespeare that have descended to modern times, while the former are, alas, the sole remaining samples of his epistolary writings. The latter are of course by far the more interesting, and, making allowances for the inordinate deference to rank which then prevailed, they are perfect examples of the judicious fusion of independence with courtesy in a suggestive application for a favor, and in expressions of gratitude for its concession.

In the June of this same year, 1594, Titus Andronicus was performed at Newington Butts by the Lord Chamberlain's, then acting in conjunction with the Lord Admiral's, Servants, the poet most likely taking a part in the representation. The earliest definite notice, however, of his appearance on the stage, is one in which he is recorded as having been a player in two comedies that were acted before Queen Elizabeth in the following December, at Greenwich Palace. He was then described as one of the Lord Chamberlain's Servants, and was associated in the performances with Kemp and Burbage, the former of whom was the most favorite comedian of the day. It is not known to what company or companies Shakespeare belonged previously to his adhesion to the one last named; but the probabilities are these. It is well ascertained that Henslowe was an exceedingly grasping manager, and it is therefore, most unlikely that he would have speculated in new plays that were not intended for immediate use. We may then fairly assume that every drama composed for him would be, in the first instance, produced by the actors that occupied his theater when the manuscript was purchased. Now, as Shakespeare was an actor as well as a dramatist, there is an inclination