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BHAK8PEABE. 



pounds. Queen Elizabeth, who was much delighted 

 with his Falstaff in Henry IV., is said to have 

 ordered him to write another play, in which the 

 facetious knight might appear in love, which gave 

 rise to the Merry Wives of Windsor. He was also 

 favoured with a letter from James I., in return, as 

 doctor Farmer supposes, for the compliment in 

 Macbeth. How long he acted has not been dis- 

 covered; but he finally became a proprietor and 

 manager, by license, of the Globe theatre in South- 

 wark; and it was in this situation that he afforded 

 Ben Johnson the opportunity of appearing as a 

 dramatic writer. Having a sobriety and modera- 

 tion in his views of life, not very common in the 

 profession which he adopted, our great dramatist 

 retired early, with a respectable fortune of from 

 200 to 300 per annum, equivalent, perhaps, 

 to 1000 in our own day, and spent the remainder 

 of his life in ease, retirement, and the conversation 

 of his friends. For some years before his death, 

 he resided at Stratford, in a house which con- 

 tinued in the possession of his descendants until 

 the restoration. Garrick, Macklin, and others, 

 were entertained, in 1742, under the mulberry- 

 tree planted by Shakspeare. The house was after- 

 wards sold to a clergyman of the name of Gastrel, 

 who, being rated for the poor higher than it pleased 

 him to pay, peevishly declared that the house should 

 never pay again; and, from ill-will to the inhabi- 

 tants of Stratford, who were benefited by the com- 

 pany it brought to the town, he pulled it down, 

 and sold the materials. He had previously cut 

 down the mulberry-tree for fuel ; but a silversmith 

 purchased the whole of it, which he manufactured 

 into memorials of the poet. Shakspeare died on 

 the anniversary of his birth-day, April 23, 1616, 

 having completed his fifty-second year. He was 

 interred in the church of Stratford. Aubrey says 

 that Shakspeare was " a handsome, well-shaped 

 man, verie good company, and of a very pleasant, 

 reddie, and smooth witt." His son died at the age 

 of twelve years. His widow survived him seven 

 years. Susanna, who married a physician named 

 John Hall, died aged sixty-six; and Judith, who 

 married a Mr Guiney, died aged seventy-seven. 

 The children of these ladies were all without off- 

 spring; but, in 1819, mention was made of a 

 female relation of the family of Shakspeare. In 

 1741, a monument was erected to him in West- 

 minster abbey, and paid for by the proceeds of 

 benefits at the two great theatres. In 1769, by 

 the efforts of Garrick, a festival was celebrated in 

 honour of the poet in his native town of Stratford. 

 There was a splendid procession of triumphal cars, 

 in which King Lear, Richard HI., Macbeth, Romeo 

 and Juliet, accompanied with music and the shouts 

 of the populace, moved to a splendid temple, where 

 speeches, oratorios, and odes were combined to do 

 honour to Shakspeare. The next year, the spec- 

 tacle was exhibited at Drury lane in London, and 

 was repeated for one hundred nights. 



A. W. Schlegel has devoted to the character of 

 Shakspeare one of the most valuable of his Lec- 

 tures on the Drama, which are now translated into 

 English. It may not be uninteresting to our 

 readers to know the opinions of such a man on the 

 great English poet, whose works he has himself 

 translated and naturalized in Germany, where they 

 Lave been as much admired as in England, and per- 

 haps more profoundly criticised by men of distin- 

 guished talent. " The ignorance or learning of the 

 poet," says Schlegel, " has been the subject of 



endless controversy; and yet it is a matter rery 

 easily settled. Shakspeare was poor in dead learn, 

 ing, but he possessed a fullness of living and appli- 

 cable knowledge. He knew Latin, and even 

 something of Greek, though not probably enough 

 to read Greek writers with ease in the original. 

 With the French and Italian he had also but a 

 superficial acquaintance. He had a very extensive 

 knowledge of English books, original and translated. 

 He was sufficiently intimate with mythology to 

 employ it in the only manner he wished as a 

 symbolical ornament. He had formed the most 

 correct notions of the spirit of ancient history, and 

 more particularly of that of the Romans; and the 

 history of his own country was familiar to him, 

 even in detail. He was an attentive observer 

 of nature. He knew the technical language of 

 mechanics and artisans. He seems to have tra- 

 velled much in the interior of England, and to 

 have been a diligent inquirer of navigators respect- 

 ing other countries; and he was most accurately 

 acquainted with all the popular usages, opinions, 

 and traditions which could be of use in poetry. 

 The proofs of his ignorance on which the greatest 

 stress is laid, are a few geographical blunders and 

 anachronisms. Because, in a comedy founded on a 

 tale, he makes ships arrive in Bohemia, he has been 

 laughed at. But, in such matters, Shakspeare is 

 only faithful when he treats historical subjects re- 

 lating to his own country. When he worked on 

 novels, he avoided disturbing his audience, to 

 whom they were known, by the correction of errors 

 in secondary things. Shakspeare's anachronisms 

 are for the most part, committed purposely. It 

 was frequently of importance to him to bring the 

 subject exhibited from the back-ground of tiiue 

 quite near to us: hence, in Hamlet, though 

 avowedly an old northern story, there prevails the 

 tone of fashionable society, and, in every respect, 

 the costume of the most recent period. Without 

 these circumstances, it would not have been allow- 

 able to make a philosophical inquirer of Hamlet, on 

 which, however, the character of the whole piece 

 depends. To me, Shakspeare appears a profound 

 artist, and not a blind and wildly luxuriant genius. 

 In such poets as are usually considered, careless 

 pupils of nature, I have always found, on a closer 

 examination, when they have produced works of 

 real excellence, a distinguished cultivation of the 

 mental powers, practice in art, and views worthy 

 in themselves, and maturely considered. That 

 idea of poetic inspiration which many lyric poets 

 have brought into vogue, as if they were not in 

 their senses, and, like the Pythia, when possessed 

 by the divinity, delivered oracles unintelligible to 

 themselves, is least of all applicable to dramatic 

 composition one of the productions of the human 

 mind which requires the greatest, exercise of 

 thought. It is admitted that Shakspeare reflected, 

 and deeply reflected, on character and passion, on 

 the progress of events and human destinies, on the 

 human constitution, on all the things and relations 

 of this world; so that it was only respecting the 

 structure of his own pieces that he had no thought 

 to spare. Shakspeare's knowledge of mankind has 

 become proverbial : in this bis superiority is so 

 great, that he has justly been called the master of 

 the human heart. His characters appear neither to 

 do nor say uny thing on account of the spectator ; 

 and yet the poet, by means of the exhibition itself, 

 without any subsidiary explanation, enables us to 

 look into the inmost recesses of their minds How 



