THE POEMS OF SHAKSPEAKE. 455 



Shakspeare's poems contain more of the shadow of his poetical sub- 

 stance, than even Milton's do of his ; nor are Lucrece and Adon less 

 the integral parts of a whole, than L' Allegro and II Penseroso. The 

 common profession of these lovely twins of Milton is, as Johnson finely 

 expresses it, " to show how, among the successive variety of appearances, 

 every disposition of mind takes hold on those by which it may be grati- 

 fied." The Hemispheres of Shakspeare's design comprise a world of 

 love seen under opposing aspects. In the one we have a woman, in the 

 other a man, subject to the most scorching influence of passion ; and in 

 order to bring out, in undisguised wildness, the sometimes anticipated, 

 and oftener fashion-hidden workings of desire, he has assigned to his 

 lovers, male and female, an insensible mate. The chaste Lucrece and 

 the coy Adon are a dark ground to the high- wrought portrait of Sextus 

 and Venus,* whose courses are as like as their physical differences per- 

 mit. The Roman king and Grecian goddess, from sentimental lovers, 

 both grow into ravishers. But it is in the subtle discrimination of the 

 tender passion, as it manifests itself in man and woman ; it is in the 

 characterising precision, with which he has allotted to each those trains 

 of thought, and modes of action, which the circumstances would naturally 

 excite in the male and female mind ; it is in the developement of those 

 different paths, by which they arrive at the same conclusion : it is in this 

 learned blazon of love's shield, and the judicious parting of femme and 

 baron ; it is in the omnipotence of an imagination that can sex its ideas, 

 and delineate two passions as distinct as Eros and Anteros, that he dis- 

 plays a capacity more than Tiresian. How much of distinct character 

 is there in the use made by Tarquin and Venus of the same simile, Nar- 

 cissus : 



She. Then wooe thyself, be of thyself rejected, 



Steal thine own freedom and complain of theft, 

 Narcissus so himself himself forsook, 

 And died to kiss his shadow in the brook. 



He. Whereat she smiled with so sweet a cheer, 

 That had Narcissus seen her as she stood, 

 Self-love had never drowned him in the flood. 



Venus, a woman herself subject to fear, and maddened by Adon's 

 beauty, tries to frighten him into kindness by her prognostication, but 

 expresses no surprise, for she feels none, at the possibility of Adonis 

 loving so fair a creature as himself. Sextus, an impassioned lover, is 

 astonished at Narcissus' distasteful madness, but confidently exclaims, 

 that, had he seen such an embodied perfection as Lucrece, he would 

 have been no longer insensible. 



Both in the management of the plot, and the machinery of the style, 

 is direct evidence that the writer, is, or could be, a dramatist of the first 

 class. Each poem is a succession of scenes, splendidly decorated, and 

 the spaces between are filled with an orchestra of thoughts, deep and 



* That this was his design, may be conjectured from his altering history, or 

 rather Heathen theology, to make Adonis frigid, as Milton has altered Scripture 

 to make the Devil a hero. 



