only can opinions be collected of absolute value, and escape from the burthen of business, and with a wish worthy to be depended upon, as prophetic of the destiny to forget the world, and all its vexations and anxieties, of a new work. The young, who in nothing can escape Having obtained this wish, and so much more, it is nadelusion, are especially subject to it in their intercourse tural that they should make report as they have felt, with poetry. The cause, not so obvious as the fact is If Men of mature age, through want of practice, be unquestionable, is the same as that from which er- thus easily beguiled into admiration of absurdities, roneous judgments in this art, in the minds of men of extravagances, and misplaced ornaments, thinking it all ages, chiefly proceed; but upon Youth it operates proper that their understandings should enjoy a howith peculiar force. The appropriate business of poetry|liday, while they are unbending their minds with verse, (which, nevertheless, if genuine, is as permanent as it may be expected that such Readers will resemble pure science) her appropriate employment, her privilege their former selves also in strength of prejudice, and an and her duty, is to treat of things not as they are, but as inaptitude to be moved by the unostentatious beauties they appear; not as they exist in themselves, but as of a pure style. In the higher poetry, an enlightened they seem to exist to the senses and to the passions. Critic chiefly looks for a reflection of the wisdom of What a world of delusion does this acknowledged prin- the heart and the grandeur of the imagination. Wher ciple prepare for the inexperienced! what temptations ever these appear, simplicity accompanies them; Magnito go astray are here held forth for them whose thoughts ficence herself, when legitimate, depending upon a simhave been little disciplined by the understanding, and plicity of her own, to regulate her ornaments. But it whose feelings revolt from the sway of reason! -When is a well-known property of human nature, that our a juvenile Reader is in the height of his rapture with estimates are ever governed by comparisons, of which some vicious passage, should experience throw in doubts, we are conscious with various degrees of distinctness. or common-sense suggest suspicions, a lurking con- Is it not, then, inevitable ( confining these observations sciousness that the realities of the Muse are but shows, to the effects of style merely) that an eye, accustomed and that her liveliest excitements are raised by transient to the glaring hues of diction by which such Readers shocks of conflicting feeling and successive assemblages are caught and excited, will for the most part be rather of contradictory thoughts-is ever at hand to justify repelled than attracted by an original Work, the coextravagance, and to sanction absurdity. But, it may louring of which is disposed according to a pure and be asked, as these illusions are unavoidable, and, no refined scheme of harmony? It is in the fine arts as in doubt, eminently useful to the mind as a process, what the affairs of life, no man can serve (i. e. obey with good can be gained by making observations, the tendency zeal and fidelity) two Masters. of which is to diminish the confidence of youth in its feelings, and thus to abridge its innocent and even pro-it fitable pleasures? The reproach implied in the question could not be warded off, if Youth were incapable of being delighted with what is truly excellent; or, if these errors always terminated of themselves in due season. But, with the majority, though their force be abated, they continue through life. Moreover, the fire of youth is too vivacious an element to be extinguished or damped by a philosophical remark; and, while there is no danger that what has been said will be injurious or painfullence wholly escape, or but languidly excite, its notice. to the ardent and the confident, it may prove beneficial to those who, being enthusiastic, are, at the same time, modest and ingenuous. The intimation may unite with their own misgivings to regulate their sensibility, and to bring in, sooner than it would otherwise have arrived, a more discreet and sound judgment.

If it should excite wonder that men of ability, in later life, whose understandings have been rendered acute by practice in affairs, should be so easily and so far imposed upon when they happen to take up a new work in verse, this appears to be the cause;-that, having discontinued their attention to poetry, whatever progress may have been made in other departments of knowledge, they have not, as to this art, advanced in true discernment beyond the age of youth. If, then, a new poem falls in their way, whose attractions are of that kind which would have enraptured them during the heat of youth, the judgment not being improved to a degree that they shall be disgusted, they are dazzled; and prize and cherish the faults for having had power to make the present time vaaish before them, and to throw the mind back, as by enchantment, into the happiest season of life. As they read, powers seem to be revived, passions are regenerated, and pleasures restored. The Book was probably taken up after an

As Poetry is most just to its own divine origin when administers the comforts and breathes the spirit of religion, they who have learned to perceive this truth, and who betake themselves to reading verse for sacred purposes, must be preserved from numerous illusions to which the two Classes of Readers, whom we have been considering, are liable. But, as the mind grows serious from the weight of life, the range of its passions is contracted accordingly; and its sympathies become so exclusive, that many species of high excel

Besides, Men who read from religious or moral inclinations, even when the subject is of that kind which they approve, are beset with misconceptions and mistakes peculiar to themselves. Attaching so much importance to the truths which interest them, they are prone to over-rate the Authors by whom these truths are expressed and enforced. They come prepared to impart so much passion to the Poet's language, that they remain unconscious how little, in fact, they receive from it. And, on the other hand, religious faith is to him who holds it so momentous a thing, and error appears to be attended with such tremendous consequences, that, if opinions touching upon religion occur which the Reader condemns, he not only cannot sympathise with them, however animated the expression, but there is, for the most part, an end put to all satisfaction and enjoyment. Love, if it before existed, is converted into dislike; and the heart of the Reader is set against the Author and his book.-To these excesses, they, who from their professions ought to be the most guarded against them, are perhaps the most liable; I mean those sects whose religion, being from the calculating understanding, is cold and formal. For when Christianity, the religion of humility, is founded upon the proudest faculty of our nature, what can be expected

but contradictions? Accordingly, believers of this cast false principles; who, should they generalise rightly are at one time contemptuous; at another, being to a certain point, are sure to suffer for it in the end; troubled as they are and must be with inward mis--who, if they stumble upon a sound rule, are fettered givings, they are jealous and suspicious;-and at all seasons, they are under temptation to supply, by the heat with which they defend their tenets, the animation which is wanting to the constitution of the religion itself.

by misapplying it, or by straining it too far; being incapable of perceiving when it ought to yield to one of higher order. In it are found Critics too petulant to be passive to a genuine Poet, and too feeble to grapple with him; Men, who take upon them to report of the course which he holds whom they are utterly unable to accompany,—confounded if he turn quick upon the wing, dismayed if he soar steadily « into the region ;»

in whose minds all healthy action is languid,-who therefore feed as the many direct them, or, with the many, are greedy after vicious provocatives;-Judges, whose censure is auspicious, and whose praise ominous! In this class meet together the two extremes of best and worst.

Faith was given to man that his affections, detached from the treasures of time, might be inclined to settle upon those of eternity:-the elevation of his nature, which this habit produces on earth, being to him a pre-Men of palsied imaginations and indurated hearts; sumptive evidence of a future state of existence; and giving him a title to partake of its holiness. The religious man values what he sees chiefly as an « imperfect shadowing forth » of what he is incapable of seeing. The concerns of religion refer to indefinite objects, and are too weighty for the mind to support them without relieving itself by resting a great part of the burthen upon words and symbols. The commerce between Man and his Maker cannot be carried on but by a process where much is represented in little, and the Infinite Being accommodates himself to a finite capacity. In all this may be perceived the affinity between religion and poetry;—between religion-making up the deficiencies of reason by faith; and poetry-passionate for the instruction of reason; between religion-whose element is infinitude, and whose ultimate trust is the supreme of things, submitting herself to circumscription and reconciled to substitutions; and poetry—larity, and have passed away, leaving scarcely a trace ethereal and transcendent, yet incapable to sustain her existence without sensuous incarnation. In this community of nature may be perceived also the lurking incitements of kindred error;-so that we shall find that no poetry has been more subject to distortion, than that species, the argument and scope of which is religious; and no lovers of the art have gone farther astray than the pious and the devout.

The observations presented in the foregoing series are of too ungracious a nature to have been made without reluctance; and, were it only on this account, I would invite the reader to try them by the test of comprehensive experience. If the number of Judges who can be confidently relied upon be in reality so small, it ought to follow that partial notice only, or neglect, perhaps long continued, or attention wholly inadequate to their merits-must have been the fate of most works in the higher departments of poetry; and that, on the other hand, numerous productions have blazed into popu

behind them :-it will be further found, that when Authors have, at length, raised themselves into general admiration and maintained their ground, errors and prejudices have prevailed concerning their genius and their works, which the few who are conscious of those errors and prejudices would deplore; if they were not recompensed by perceiving that there are select Spirits for whom it is ordained that their fame shall be in the world an existence like that of Virtue, which owes its being to the struggles it makes, and its vigour to the enemies whom it provokes ;-a vivacious quality, ever doomed to meet with opposition, and still triumphing over it; and, from the nature of its dominion, incapable of being brought to the sad conclusion of Alexander, when he wept that there were no more worlds for him

to conquer.

Whither then shall we turn for that union of qualifications which must necessarily exist before the decisions of a critic can be of absolute value? For a mind at once poetical and philosophical; for a critic whose affections are as free and kindly as the spirit of society, and whose understanding is severe as that of dispassionate government ? Where are we to look for that initiatory composure of mind which no selfishness can disturb? For a natural sensibility that has been tutored Let us take a hasty retrospect of the poetical literainto correctness without losing any thing of its quick-ture of this Country for the greater part of the last two ness; and for active faculties capable of answering the demands which an Author of original imagination shall make upon them,-associated with a judgment that cannot be duped into admiration by aught that is unworthy of it?-Among those and those only, who, never having suffered their youthful love of poetry to remit much of its force, have applied to the consideration of the laws of this art the best power of their understandings. At the same time it must be observed that, as this Class comprehends the only judgments which are trust-worthy, so does it include the most erroneous and perverse. For to be mis-taught is worse than to be untaught; and no perverseness equals that which is supported by system, no errors are so difficult to root out as those which the understanding has pledged its credit to uphold. In this Class are contained Censors, who, if they be pleased with what is good, are pleased with it only by imperfect glimpses, and upon

Centuries, and see if the facts support these inferences.
Who is there that can now endure to read the « Crea-
tion » of Dubartas? Yet all Europe once resounded with
his praise; he was caressed by Kings; and, when his
Poem was translated into our language, the Faery Queen
faded before it. The name of Spenser, whose genius is
of a higher order than even that of Ariosto, is at this
day scarcely known beyond the limits of the British
Isles. And if the value of his works is to be estimated
from the attention now paid to them by his Country-
men, compared with that which they bestow on those
of some other writers, it must be pronounced small in-
deed.

The laurel meed of mighty Conquerors
And Poets sage—

are his own words; but his wisdom has, in this particular, been his worst enemy; while its opposite, whether

in the shape of fully or madness; has been their best friend. But he was a great power; and bears a high name: the laurel has been awarded to him.

might say, an established opinion, that Shakspeare is justly praised when he is pronounced to be « a wild irregular genius, in whom great faults are compensated A Dramatic Author, if he write for the Stage, must by great beauties.» How long may it be before this adapt himself to the taste of the Audience, or they will misconception passes away, and it becomes universally not endure him; accordingly the mighty genius of Shak- acknowledged that the judgment of Shakspeare in the speare was listened to. The people were delighted; but | selection of his materials, and in the manner in which I am not sufficiently versed in Stage antiquities to de- he has made them, heterogeneous as they often are, termine whether they did not flock as eagerly to the re-constitute a unity of their own, and contribute all to presentation of many pieces of contemporary Authors, one great end, is not less admirable than his imaginawholly undeserving to appear upon the same boards. tion, his invention, and his intuitive knowledge of Had there been a formal contest for superiority among human Nature! dramatic Writers, that Shakspeare, like his predecessors Sophocles and Euripides, would have often been subject to the mortification of seeing the prize adjudged to sorry competitors, becomes too probable, when we reflect that the admirers of Settle and Shadwell were, in a later age, as numerous, and reckoned as respectable in point of talent, as those of Dryden. At all events, that Shakspeare stooped to accommodate himself to the People, is sufficiently apparent; and one of the most striking proofs of his almost omnipotent genius, is, that he could turn to such glorious purpose those materials which the pre-liament not being strong enough to compel the perusal possessions of the age compelled him to make use of. Yet even this marvellous skill appears not to have been enough to prevent his rivals from having some advantage over him in public estimation; else how can we account for passages and scenes that exist in his works, unless upon a supposition that some of the grossest of them, a fact which in my own mind I have no doubt of, were foisted in by the Players, for the gratification of the many?

There is extant a small Volume of miscellaneous Poems in which Shakspeare expresses his own feelings in his own Person. It is not difficult to conceive that the Editor, George Steevens, should have been insensible to the beauties of one portion of that Volume, the Sonnets; though there is not a part of the writings of this Poet where is found, in an equal compass, a greater number of exquisite feelings felicitously expressed. But, from regard to the Critic's own credit, he would not have ventured to talk of an act of par

of these, or any production of Shakspeare, if he had not known that the people of England were ignorant of the treasures contained in those little pieces; and if he had not, moreover, shared the too common propensity of human nature to exult over a supposed fall into the mire of a genius whom he had been compelled to regard with admiration, as an inmate of the celestial regions, there sitting where he durst not soar.>>

Nine years before the death of Shakspeare, Milton was born; and early in life he published several small poems, which, though on their first appearance they were praised by a few of the judicious, were afterwards neglected to that degree, that Pope, in his youth, could pilfer from them without danger of detection.Whether these poems are at this day justly appreciated I will not undertake to decide: nor would it imply a severe reflection upon the mass of Readers to suppose the contrary; seeing that a Man of the acknowledged genius of Voss, the German Poet, could suffer their spirit to evaporate; and could change their character, as is done in the translation made by him of the most

But that his Works, whatever might be their reception on the stage, made little impression upon the ruling Intellects of the time, may be inferred from the fact that Lord Bacon, in his multifarious writings, nowhere either quotes or alludes to him. His dramatic excellence enabled him to resume possession of the stage after the Restoration; but Dryden tells us that in his time two of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher were acted for one of Shakspeare. And so faint and limited was the perception of the poetic beauties of his dramas in the time of Pope, that, in his Edition of the Plays, with a view of rendering to the general Reader a necessary service, he printed between inverted commas those pas-popular of those pieces. At all events, it is certain that sages which he thought most worthy of notice.

At this day, the French Critics have abated nothing of their aversion to this darling of our Nation: « the English, with their Buffon de Shakspeare,» is as familiar an expression among them as in the time of Voltaire. Baron Grimm is the only French writer who seems to have perceived his infinite superiority to the first names of the French Theatre; an advantage which the Parisian Critic owed to his German blood and German education. The most enlightened Italians, though well acquainted with our language, are wholly incompetent to measure the proportions of Shakspeare. The Germans only, of foreign nations, are approaching towards a knowledge and feeling of what he is. In some respects they have acquired a superiority over the fellow-countrymen of the Poet: for among us it is a current, I

1 The learned Hakewill (a third edition of whose book bears date 1635) writing to refute the error touching Nature's perpetual and universal decay," cites triumphantly the names of Ariosto, Tasso, Bartas, and Spenser, as instances that poetic genius had not degenerated; but he makes no mention of Shakspeare.

these Poems of Milton are now much read, and loudly praised; yet were they little heard of till more than 150 years after their publication; and of the Sonnets, Dr Johnson, as appears from Boswell's Life of him, was in the habit of thinking and speaking as contemptuously as Steevens wrote upon those of Shakspeare.

About the time when the Pindaric Odes of Cowley and his imitators, and the productions of that class of curious thinkers whom Dr Johnson has strangely styled Metaphysical Poets, were beginning to lose something of that extravagant admiration which they had excited, the Paradise Lost made its appearance. « Fit audience find though few,» was the petition addressed by the Poet to his inspiring Muse. I have said elsewhere that he gained more than he asked; this I believe to be true;

This flippant insensibility was publicly reprehended by Mr Coleridge in a course of Lectures upon Poetry given by him at the Royal Institution. For the various merits of thought and language in Shakspeare's Sonnets see Numbers 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 54, 64, 66, 68, 73, 76, 86, 91, 92, 93, 97, 98, 105, 107, 108, 109, 111, 113, 114, 116, 117, 139, and many others.