feast, in which there is no satiety. As the diction of Shakspeare rises in his higher scenes, without effort or tumour, to the sublime of poetry, so does it fall, in bis comic, with facility and grace, into the humility of prose. It has been charged with being harsh and ungrammatical. I believe it to be harsh and unrhythmical (I confine the remark, of course, to the verse portion of it) only when it has been deformed by the perverse industry of tasteless commentators, referring us to incorrect transcriptions for authorities; and to the same cause may be ascribed, as I am satisfied, many if not all of its grosser grammatical errors. It will not, indeed, in every instance, as we are willing to allow, abide the rigid analysis of grammar; for it sometimes impresses the idea forcibly and distinctly on the mind without the aid of regular grammar, and without discovering the means by which the exploit has been achieved. As one example of this power of Shakspeare's diction, among many of a similar nature which might be adduced, we will transcribe the often-cited answer of Claudio to his sister, in "Measure for Measure," respecting the unknown terrors of death. The expressions in italics convey their meaning with great accuracy to the hearer's or the reader's mind; but, if submitted to the philosophical grammarian's examination, they will not easily stand under it; and they may puzzle us to account for their effect in the communication of the poet's ideas.

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where :

To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot:

This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods; or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice:
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds;
And blown with restless violence about

The pendent world: or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and uncertain thoughts
Imagine howling!- -'tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life,
That age, ach, penury, imprisonment

Can lay on nature, is a paradise

To what we fear of death."

This entire passage, terminating at "howling," is defi cient in grammatical correctness, for it contains an antecedent not succeeded by a consequent: but is there a reader of taste who would wish it to be any thing but what it is? As for those barbarisms of the double negative and the double comparative, which Malone is studious to recall from the old copies into Shakspeare's text, I have already declared my conviction that they are falsely charged upon Shakspeare. They are not to be found in those effusions of his muse which issued from the press under his own immediate inspection; and they must assuredly be considered as the illiterate errors of an illiterate transcriber.

I could now easily, and the task would be delightful to me, produce examples, from the page of Shakspeare, of all the excellencies which I have attributed to his diction; of its sublimity, its force, its tenderness, its pathos, its picturesque character, its sweet and evervarying harmony. But I have already very far transgressed the limits prescribed to me in my volume; and I must restrain myself. When, therefore, I have cited, at the close of what I am now writing, the description by Jaques, in "As you Like it," of the seven ages of man, as an evidence of Shakspeare's power to touch the most familiar topics into poetry, as the Phrygian monarch could touch the basest substances into gold, I shall conclude this long and, as I fear, this fatiguing treatise on Shakspeare and his works, by asking if he be not a mighty genius, sufficiently illustrious and commanding to call forth the choice spirits of a learned and intellectual century to assert his greatness, and to march in his triumph to fame?

Yes, Master of the human heart! we own
Thy sovereign sway; and bow before thy throne:
Where, richly deck'd with laurels never sere,

It stands aloft, and baffles Time's career.

There warbles Poesy her sweetest song:

There the wild Passions wait, thy vassal throng.
There Love, there Hate, there Joy in turn presides;
And rosy Laughter holding both his sides.

At thy command the varied tumult rolls:

Now Pity melts, now Terror chills our souls.

Now, as thou wavest thy wizard-rod, are seen

The Fays and Elves quick glancing o'er the green:
And, as the moon her perfect orb displays,
The little people sparkle in her rays.

There, mid the lightning's blaze, and whirlwind's howl,
On the scath'd beath the fatal Sisters scowl:
Or, as hell's caldron bubbles o'er the flame,
Prepare to do A DEED WITHOUT A NAME.

These are thy wonders, Nature's darling birth!
And Fame exulting bears thy name o'er earth.
There, where Rome's eagle never stoop'd for blood,
By hallow'd Ganges and Missouri's flood:
Where the bright eyelids of the Morn unclose;
And where Day's steeds in golden stalls repose;
Thy peaceful triumphs spread; and mock the pride
Of Pella's Youth, and Julius slaughter-dyed.

In ages far remote, when Albion's state
Hath touch'd the mortal limit, mark'd by Fate:
When Arts and Science fly her naked shore:
And the world's Empress shall be great no more ⚫
Then Australasia shall thy sway prolong;
And her rich cities echo with thy song.

There myriads still shall laugh, or drop the tear,
At Falstaff's humour, or the woes of Lear:
Man, wave-like, following man, thy powers admire ;
And thou, my SHAKSPEARE, reign till time expire.

NEWSTEAD ABBEY,
Aug. 4th, 1825.

C. S.

THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN.

JAQUES. -All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players : They have their exits, and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being SEVEN AGES.

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow: Then, a SOLDIER;

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard;
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel;
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth: