displayed the capacities of our language, or produced passages more worthy of comparison with the splendid monuments of antiquity." * The chief glory, however, of the Elizabethan age, is its poetry, at once the most abundant and the highest in the annals of English literature. No fewer than two hundred poets are referred to the period by a catalogue which, by good authority, is thought not to exceed the true number. But it is not number alone. There are the names of Edmund Spenser and of William Shaks peare. When Spenser, in 1590, gave to the world the first books of "The Faery Queen," it was done in a manner worthy of the age and of his great inspiration. It was dedicated to his Queen-"The most high, mighty, and magnificent empress, renowned for piety, virtue, and all gracious government, Elizabeth, by the grace of God, Queen of England, France, and Ireland, and VIRGINIA."' Yes, there stands the name of that honoured State; and, while there is many a reason for the lofty spirit of her sons, the pulse of their pride may beat higher at the sight of the record of "the ancient dominion" on the first page of the Faery Queen. The poet placed it there as a tribute to her from whom the name was taken, and also to the gallant enterprise of Raleigh and his adventurous followers. The poem is ushered in not only by the dedication to the sovereign, but by a series of introductory verses addressed to the most illustrious statesmen and soldiers of the court, Hatton, and Burleigh, and Essex, Howard, Walsingham, * Hallam's Constitutional History of England, vol. i. p. 291. *、 and Raleigh—to Buckhurst, (whose own muse was slumbering now;) and not only to these, the living men of power and place, but, with a truth of affection worthy of the poet's gentle spirit, to the mourning sister of his lost friend, Sir Philip Sydney, and closing with an address, full of the chivalry of the times, "to all the gratious and beautiful ladies in the court." Having occasion now to hasten to a few other subjects, I propose to reserve what I wish to say of the Faery Queen, until the next lecture, when I desire to speak of Spenser as a sacred poet, in connection with some counsel on the subject of Sunday reading. At present, let me recommend that remarkable series of papers from the pen of Professor John Wilson-the Christopher North of Blackwood's Magazine-papers of the highest value as pieces of true imaginative criticism, written with such a glowing admi ration of Spenser's genius, that I know of no better means than the perusal of them for extending the study of this great allegory. They are to be found in Blackwood's Magazine for 1833. The large luminary of Spenser's imagination had scarce mounted high enough above the horizon to kindle all it touched, when there arose the still more glorious shape of Shakspeare's genius, radiant like Milton's seraph-"another morn risen on mid-noon." This was the wonderful dramatic era in English letters. Within about fifty years, beginning in the latter part of the sixteenth century, there was a concourse of dramatic authors, the like of which is seen nowhere else in literary history. The central figure is Shakspeare, towering above them all; but there were there, Ben Jonson, and Beaumont, and Fletcher, and Ford, and a multitude of whom a poet has said, "They stood around The throne of Shakspeare, sturdy, but unclean."* Their productions were numerous: one of them, Heywood, speaks of having had a share in the authorship of two hundred and twenty plays, of which only twenty-five have been preserved. They often worked, too, in fellowship, such as linked the names of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher forever together a beautiful literary companionship, the secret of which seems to be lost in the more calculating selfishness of later times. It is scarce possible, it seems to me, to mistake that this abundant development of dramatic poetry was characteristic of times distinguished by the admirable union of action and contemplation in many of the illustrious men who flourished then; for instance, Sir Philip Sydney devoting himself to the effort of raising English poetry to its true estate, kindling his heart with the old ballads, or drawing the gentle Spenser forth from the hermitage of his modesty; at the same time sharing in affairs of state. in knights' deeds of arms, and on the field of battle meeting an early death, memorable with its last deed of charity, when, putting away the cup of water from his own lips burn ing with the thirst of a bleeding death, he gave it to a wounded soldier with the words, "Thy necessity is yet greater than mine:" or Raleigh preserving his love of letters throughout his whole varied career, at court, in camp, or tempest-tost in his adventures on the ocean. It seems to me that an age thus characterized by the combination of thought and deed in its representative men, had its most congenial literature in the drama-that form of * Walter Savage Landor. poetry which Lord Bacon has described as "history made visible." I have said little of the greatest name that adorns the literature of the age of Elizabeth and the few succeeding years, and have now left myself no space to speak of what demands such ample room as comment on Shakspeare. It is a field that has been of late very much travelled over. Its interest, if truly sought, can never be exhausted. There is a mere chance that I may be pointing your attention to what has not attracted it before, when I ask whether you have ever noticed the power of Shakspeare peculiarly as a writer of English prose. Of its kind, it is as admirable as his poetic language. It is interspersed through his plays, never introduced probably without some exquisite art in the transition from verse to prose, from metrical to unmetrical diction. Let us for a few minutes look at this subject, and I will place side by side two passages, counterpart in some measure in subject; first, of verse, that familiar passage on the music of the spheres, which Hallam's calm judgment pronounced "perhaps the most sublime in Shakspeare :"* *Hallam's Literature of Europe, chap. iii. § 11, vol. iii. p. 147. It is difficult to refrain from quoting, hackneyed as they are, the lines which immediately precede those in the text, the playful dialogue of the Venetian lovers, ending with the solemn, reverential outburst of Lorenzo, as, turning from the bright, mortal eyes of his mistress, he looks up to the stars of heaven. There are some lines of Shelly, on Night, which do not suffer in comparison with any thing since the Merchant of Venice: "How beautiful this Night! the balmiest sigh X "Look, how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold! There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings, Whose prose but Shakspeare's could stand by the side of such verse? I turn to an equally familiar passage in Hamlet: "I have of late (but wherefore, I know not) lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercise: and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory: this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! That wraps this moveless scene. How infinite Heaven's ebon arch, Studded with stars unutterably bright, Through which the moon's unclouded splendour rolls, To curtain her sleeping world. Yon gentle hills, A metaphor of Peace,-all form a scene |