THE PROGRESS OF HUMAN LIFE. 1 ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE; AND THEN, THE JUSTICE; INTRODUCTION. O YOUTHS and VIRGINS! O declining Eld! Hath not His faithful tongue Told you the fashion of your own estate, The secrets of your bosom! AKENSIDE, WITH respect to the works of SHAKSPEARE, the young reader of reflection may ask, what is it that renders them so universally pleasing? wherein consists that charm that interests the affections, and overpowers the heart of almost every person who sits down to the perusal of them? There must be some reason for this fascination. There are causes to be assigned for this universal approbation. It has been remarked, that SHAKSPEARE has excelled in the first and greatest characteristics of genius; the power of moving the passions, and enchaining the attention; the faculty of inventing and portraying characters; the beauty and energy of his style, diction, and imagery; and the power of numbers, as well as the facility and felicity of his versification. These are all of them deserving of attention. To these exemplifications of the superiority of Shakspeare's writings above all others, may be added the sentiments and maxims of MORALITY with which they are impregnated, Hence a selection has been made at various times, and on differeut occasions, well adapted to engage the affections, and interest the heart. I shall subjoin a character of SHAKSPEARE by the judicious Dr. Aikin, in his Letters to his Son. “By means of his nervous and highly figurative language, rather aided than injured in its effect by a turn to quaintness and bombast, SHAKSPEARE presents even trite sentiments and descriptions in so impressive a form, that they are seized with avidity by the imagination; and through it, act with irresistible force on the heart. But in addition to this, a fund of strong sense and sagacity suggested to him an uncommon variety of just and curious observations on mankind, which he has copiously introduced, sometimes with little dramatic propriety, but so as to furnish an almost inexhaustible store of moral precept and reflection. These choice products of his genius are culled by the English reader with scarcely any interruption from the gross matter, in which, like pure gold in its matrix, they are often imbedded! His detached beauties shine in all collections, and even regular systems of morality have been fabricated from his works alone. Considering the universal familiarity with SHAKSPEARE's best pieces acquired among us, either from the stage or in the closet, and the adoption of so much of his phraseology by many of our popular writers, I do not think it is exaggerating the effect of poetry to suppose, that the characteristic English manliness of thought has been greatly indebted to him for its preservation, amid prevailing luxury and fashionable frivolity." A proper close of this eulogium on the genius of SHAKSPEARE will be a few remarks on the character of the melancholy, moralizing, and satirical JACQUES, whose representation of Human Life under SEVEN Ages, is illustrated in the following pages. The character of JACQUES is altogether singular, and of a very eccentric complexion. We meet with this personage in SHAKSPEARE's As YOU LIKE IT; (published, according to Malone, in 1600) there we thus find it delineated. Lord. To-day, my Lord of Amiens, and myself, |