Two strengthless doves will draw me through the sky
From morn till night, e'en where I list to sport me.
Is love so light, sweet boy, and may it be,

That thou shouldst think it heavy unto thee?

The following is almost the "good night" in Romeo and Juliet :-
Now let me say "good night," and so say you:
If you will say so, you shall have a kiss.

"Good night," quoth she, and ere he says adieu !

The honey fee of parting tender'd is.

Is there any thing surpassing the picture of the horse of Adonis to be met with in the English language? The character, temper, and description of the animal, are wonderfully vigorous and spirited. To my feeling there is no pen, ancient or modern, that has more happily drawn that noble animal, except Job, whom the Poet doubtless had in his eye. As but few of my readers may recollect this description, I will give it here.

Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,

And now his woven girts he breaks asunder;

The bearing earth, with his hard hoof he wounds,
Whose hollow womb resounds like Heaven's thunder;
The iron bit he crushes 'tween his teeth,
Controlling what he was controlled with.

His ears up-prick'd, his braided hanging mane
Upon his compass'd crest now stands on end.
His nostrils drink the air, and forth again,
As from a furnace, vapours doth he send:
His eye, which glisters scornfully, like fire,
Shews his hot courage, and his high desire.
Sometimes he trots, as if he told the steps,
With gentle majesty, and modest pride;
Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps,
As who should say, "Lo! thus my strength is try'd:
And thus I do to captivate the eye

Of the fair breeder that is standing by."

What recketh he his rider's angry stir,
His flatt'ring holla, or his stand, I say?
What cares he now for curb or pricking spur?
For rich caparisons or trappings gay?
He sees his love, and nothing else he sees,
For nothing else with his proud sight agrees.

Look when a painter would surpass the life,
In limning out a well-proportion'd steed,
His art with Nature's workmanship at strife,
As if the dead the living should exceed :
So did his horse excel a common one

In shape, in courage, colour, pace, and bone.

Round-hoof'd, short jointed, fetlocks shag and long,
Broad breast, full eyes, small head, and nostril wide,
High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing strong,
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide;
Look what a horse should have, he did not lack,
Save a proud rider on so proud a back.

Sometimes he scuds far off, and there he stares;
Anon he starts at stirring of a feather

To bid the wind abase he now prepares,

And where he run, or fly, they know not whither.
For through his mane and tail the high wind sings,
Fanning the hairs, which heave like feather'd wings.

That of Venus depicting the fierceness of the boar is bold :
His eyes like glow-worms shine when he doth fret,
His snout digs sepulchres where'er he goes.

That Shakspeare may be traced in Venus and Adonis is undeniable; there are numerous passages, particularly such as relate to love, that bear a strong resemblance to others interspersed throughout his plays. The mind of the observer will often discover the similarity by a sort of intuition, when the passage may not be verbally the same. There is often a certain character, a dim likeness connecting the resemblance of one passage in a writer with another; that, perhaps, for who knows the mysterious workings of intellect? may be of the same nature as the image which produced the second in the mind of the author from association with the first. I fancy such a resemblance in the following. "Sweet boy," she says, "this night I'll waste in sorrow, For my sick heart commands my eyes to watch:

Tell me,

love's master, shall we meet to-morrow?"

Now the following occurs to me in Romeo and Juliet, and it is probable that this tragedy was his next performance.

Sweet, so would I :

Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing,

Good night, good night, parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow!

How like Shakspeare are these lines where Venus laments Adonis :-
Alas, poor world, what treasure hast thou lost!
What face remains alive that's worth the viewing?
Whose tongue is music now? what canst thou boast

Of things long since, or any thing ensuing?

The flowers are sweet, their colours fresh and trim,
But true sweet beauty lived and died with him!

How beautifully are the eyes of Venus described, as she is looking upon Adonis and weeping:

But hers, which through the crystal tears gave light,
Shone like the moon in water seen by night.

The Rape of Lucrece is by no means equal in merit to Venus and Adonis; yet there are some fine passages here and there, particularly in Lucretia's lamentation. The sonnets partake too much of the reigning taste of the time, though they do not bear any resemblance to those of Sir Philip Sidney, which are obscure and full of art. Shakspeare's are more natural, and are in a finer spirit of poetry as might have been expected. There is a plaintiveness about those of Sidney which is not to be found in Shakspeare's; but in those of the latter there are mastertouches of the poet. Still they have too much sameness; and if, as there is some reason to believe, they were his last productions, they are a little out of place from the pen of a man who had passed the fire of youth and the prime of manhood. Shakspeare, however, bowed to the reigning taste, and writ his sonnets, most likely, to an ideal mistress ; if to a real one, the fair dame must have had a strong antipathy to the VOL. V. No. 29.-1823.

60

marriage state, or the poet a curious faith in the efficacy of one argument for touching her heart. He woos his mistress constantly by representing how miserable it is for beauty to be childless, and rings the changes upon this theme through fifty sonnets. The presumption is, that Shakspeare knew nothing of Italian literature, and followed preceding examples among his own countrymen, who had no idea of any but the Petrarchian love-sonnet, deeming its use sacred to passion alone. Poets of his time had their ideal mistresses, if they had none of flesh and blood; and even at later periods they have puzzled their biographers to discover who the fair one might have been among their contemporaries, in the praises of whom they had been lavish, when the matchless being never existed out of their own imaginations*. If, however, the sonnets were the poet's later productions, as there is every reason to believe they were, it appears that he was repressed by some fancied rule from giving to them that variety of character which it was in his power to have done, and this rule must have been the example of preceding writers; and it is the more wonderful that they possess so little variety, when no poet, judging from his dramatic writings, had it more in his power to avoid sameness. That many of these sonnets are very beautiful must be acknowledged, in despite of conceits, and quibbles, and the sustaining a species of artificial love far removed from the natural affection which he best knew how to describe, and which was alone worthy his power of description; yet they merit close attention, they abound in passages that glow with imagination, and flow with singular ease. There is astonishing freedom of style in them for the period at which they were written; indeed it would be superfluous to remark, what has been often observed before, the vast debt our language owes to Shakspeare, in refining it and showing what it was capable of effecting. The following sonnet intimates again the poet's confidence in his own talents before alluded to :

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance, or Nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest :
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

There does not appear to me a shadow of ground for the conjectures of some late writers, respecting the origin and object of these sonnets. Shakspeare was past middle age when he wrote them, and they were published in 1609, during his lifetime. Conjecture may follow conjecture without end, but that which is certain is alone worthy of belief. Mr. Malone conjectured that Romeo and Juliet was written in 1591, but he could only substantiate its appearance in 1595. Some writers are too fond of inference where it is not needed. Shakspeare need not have been in love to have written his sonnets. Their object was doubtless ideal, because if sonnets were to be written at all, in those days, they must have en addressed to some mistress. It would be still more improbable to suppose rote them for another.

To me the allusions in this sonnet are beautiful; it has pathos and sentiment, and seems to confirm the idea of having been among the last things the great poet penned, as it refers to his age:

That time of year thou may'st in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the West,

Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second-self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

I know not how the idea of Shakspeare's unconsciousness of his powers is to be supported on reading this:

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time
My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,
Since spite of him I'll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes.
And thou in this shalt find thy monument,

When tyrants' crest and tombs of brass are spent.

How delicious is the following! It has lusciousness, beauty, and marvellous ease. The commencement is truly worthy of Shakspeare, and reminds me strongly of his happy descriptions of morning in his plays. Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchymy; Anon permit the basest clouds to ride With ugly rack on his celestial face, And from the forlorn world his visage hide, Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace. E'en so my sun one early morn did shine, With all-triumphant splendour on my brow; But out! alack! he was but one hour mine,

The region-cloud hath mask'd him from me now:

Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;

Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth.

The sonnets of Shakspeare must, after all, be most valued for their intermixture of rich passages and imagery, and their connexion with their immortal author. One hundred and fifty-four sonnets, all running upon the same theme-all upon love, and yet descriptive of very few of its emotions, half of them turning upon the same idea, though

in many there is fine colouring and an exuberance of sweetness, cannot place them in any high rank as specimens of sonnet-writing. They are, however, well worthy frequent perusal; and what of Shakspeare's is there that is not?

The "Passionate Pilgrim" has great beauties, and many characteristic defects. Some exquisite passages have often been quoted from it without acknowledgment. "The Lovers Lament" is worthy of being learnt by heart: yet it is rather Spenserian than Shakspearian.

The description of her faithless "maiden-tongued" lover by the disconsolate complainer, has surprising vigour and truth; her detail of the arguments by which her lover overcame her is also very happy. The influence of tears is thus finely alluded to.

O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies
In the small orb of one particular tear!
But with the inundation of the eyes
What rocky heart to water will not wear!

What breast so cold that is not warmed here !

O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath,

Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath!

But I must quote no more.

I have thus glanced at a work in retrospective literature not ranked as it deserves. I must not be lengthy, though I have hardly skimmed the poems, and thereby done them injustice; yet what I have said may induce some discriminating readers to take them down from a dusty shelf and peruse them. They will find themselves repaid for their trouble-they will find much weighty bullion and pure gold, in its rough state, perhaps, but not less rich on that account.

Y. J.

ON GIVING ADVICE.

Et c'est une folie, à nulle autre seconde,

De vouloir se mêler de corriger le monde.

It was a remark of Horne Tooke's that in the matter of advice there are two sorts of fools; those who will give, and those who will not take it. Now, as these embrace between them almost every man that breathes, there cannot be a subject quod magis ad nos pertinet. Yet, as every man's business is nobody's business, the theme is fairly going a begging. Like the "roasted pigs which run through the streets with knives and forks in their backs," methinks, it apostrophizes the periodical writer, as he passes along in his literary jog-trot, i. e. currente calamo, and crying" Come touch on me," puts in its claim to be served up pro bono publico. Not that we would insinuate the matter to be untouched; quite the reverse: but it has uniformly been handled in such a dull, tiresome, common-place, lack-a-daisical, sermonizing style, that "poppy and mandragoras, and all the drowsy syrups of" all the congregated universities of Europe could not render it more narcotic. Whoever will take the pains-having nothing better to do-to inquire into this matter, and to turn over all that philosophy has produced for its illustration, will rise from his task with much the same sort of knowledge as the Bath mail-coachman has of the West of England, who, by dint of living on the road, is acquainted with the mile-stones, alehouse-signs, and country-seats within sight of his coach-box-but

no more.

All this sort of thing" is very well for your authors in