From that sad scene of real woes, I turn To fling a fading wreath o'er Shakspeare's urn; Toil fond, as vain, the pleasure of the task The sole reward my gratitude shall ask. To roses fragrance, freshness to the spring, Flowrets to summer, fruits to autumn bring, Rays to the sun, stars to the galaxy Present or plaudits, Heir of Fame, to thee! No more augment-than rivers ocean raise. Thou know'st to please all ranks, and every age, The young, the old, the peasant and the sage; While these are charmed,nor least who ask not why, No Critic smiles-He must his rules apply; Must strive great Nature's workings to conceal, Till Aristotle gives him-leave to feel. Thy vast o'erwhelming theme so fills the mind, No room for him that formed it, can we find ; Dazzled by rays that from thy genius dart, We lose at once the Poet, and his art ;' ** With the single exception of Homer, no Poet so com pletely veils himself and his art behind his characters, as Shakspeare. In poetry, as in oratory, the "ars celare artem" is a high proof of talent. It was a nobler eulogium on Demosthenes, when the Athenians left him, breathing this unanimous sentiment, "Let us go and fight against Philip," than if they had expressed themselves, as the mob of Rome did on Cicero, "What a fine Speech our Orator has made." And we in like manner forget Shakespeare, while we tremble with Macbeth, Thy rich creation, not its cause, we see, Midst all the works of God, to nothing blind, or weep with Othello, or sympathize with Hamlet; and when most affected by the Passions he has excited, we think least of the Poet who has awakened them. Many circumstances seem to indicate that Shakspeare was singularly unambitious of future fame. On his learning, much has been said. A decent knowledge of Latin may be perhaps allowed him, although as translations were even then not uncommon, and as Shakspeare was a great devourer of books, he might from that source have acquired much infor mation. His Cæsar bespeaks no mean acquaintance with the manners and customs of the antient Romans. "Nec licuit populis te parvam Nile videre" is a line which has been applied with singular felicity to Grey; whose first productions were great. "Dum tener in cunis jam Jove dignus erat." The reverse of this may be said of Shakspeare, as unfortunately tradition has preserved a first attempt of his. It is a fragment of a Satire on Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, from whose Park he had carried off some deer. The fragment begins thus, but it is too miserable to quote at length; "A parliament Member, a Justice of Peace, At home a poor scare-crow, at London an Ass." These are the first lines, and the best! Unconscious builder! of what must withstand What thou commandest, ALL become, who scan Thy page that full epitome of man; The soldier, scholar, statesman, bond or free, Here first my boyhood roved, through fragrant flowers, To weave an artless wreath in Shakspeare's bowers; * Perhaps this is no hyperbole; for as Glory herself is disgraced, when coupled with a Mahomet, a Jenghis Khan, or a Napoleon; so is she in some degree retrieved, by being associated with a Trajan, an Antoninus, or an Alfred. When hooting owls shall fill, and bats deface Her vast Savannahs, and her forests drear., * More far and wide than from his mountain throne Proud Chimborazzo sees, shalt thou be known; Though torrid suns their cloudless lustre shed, And gild, with rays unfelt, his icy head ; Though storms, nor thunders shake his awful seat, And harmless lightnings flash around his feet; While he surveys, above the tempest's roar, Two mighty oceans break on either shore. Erected instant, at their Bard's command, Theatric piles shall press the Western strand; * The highest point of the Andes, whose chain extends four thousand three hundred miles, forming the barrier of the vast pacific ocean. Whether the atlantic is discernible from the top of Chimborazzo can never be known, for the impassable line of perpetual congelation commences, many thousand feetbelow his apex, which is one third higher than the highest mountain in the old world. Roused by thine Orphic spell, the stones shall rise, In vain, 'twixt fame and talent, interpose While heaving sighs, from sable bosoms, prove Then still on deathless pinion soar sublime, As Shakspeare is not only read, but acted in many parts of North America, we may venture to give him,at the hands of Columbus, that other world, for which Alexander sighed in vain. 1 |