tion of Poetry. But I will refer to one which has been made, noteworthy both in itself and from the authority which has given it, and which I quote because it bears in a special manner on my subject. It is in an article in a Review, understood to have been written by Mr. Keble. I am obliged to refer to it from memory, but the substance of it was very nearly this: "Poetry is the expression of feelings congenial to the nature of him who utters them, but which the circumstances of his time and position debar him from indulging in his outward life." I remember mentioning this to my friend Mr. Woodgate, who, with that sagacity in such matters of the pure intellect which distinguishes him, at once remarked, "That seems a good accidental definition"— meaning that it was an intimation of what very often accompanies true poetry, but is not of its essence. The origin of this definition seems clear: it was in Mr. Keble's own circumstances, as must be evident to all who are familiar with the Christian Year, which is throughout an expression of the longing of the writer for a purer state of the Church than was realised around him. The article suggests many apposite instances, such as might occur to any one upon consideration. I will mention only the obvious one of Walter Scott. Including his novels, which are in truth poetical conceptions, nothing can be plainer than that the whole bent of his imaginative feelings was towards the days of chivalry and romance: and that those days being long since passed away, never to return, the rare powers of his mind turned themselves to the reproduction of them in those forms of endless beauty and variety which we find in his works. But that this is no essential definition of Poetry, is at once most evident by the single case of Shakspeare, not to mention many others. What do we know of the bent of his mind? What were his predominant feelings, or longings which could not be realised in action? Not only can no answer be given to these questions, but it would be destructive of that which is Shakspeare's great and transcendent glory if there could. This touches on the main subject, a well-known one indeed, on which I intend to dwell. We know hardly anything of Shakspeare. I lately found a curious remark about this, in the very excellent work entitled "Historical Memoirs of the English Catholics," by a Roman Catholic gentleman, the late Mr. Charles Butler; whom I cannot name without a word of admiration for his eminent moderation, candour, and gentleness. I never read a book which gave a more favourable impression of its writer. The words are these: "May the writer premise a suspicion which, from internal evidence, he has long entertained, that Shakspeare was a Roman Catholic? Not one of his works contains the slightest reflection on Popery, or any of its practices, or any eulogy on the Reformation. His panegyric on Queen Elizabeth is cautiously expressed, while Queen Catherine is placed in a state of veneration; and nothing can exceed the skill with which Griffith draws the panegyric of Wolsey. The ecclesiastic is never presented by Shakespeare in a degrading point of view. The jolly monk, the irregular nun, never ap* IV. 443, 3d Edition. pears in his drama. Is it not natural to suppose that this topic, on which, at that time, those who criminated Popery loved so much to dwell, must have often attracted his notice, and invited him to employ his muse upon them, as subjects likely to engage the attention both of the Sovereign and the public? Does not his abstinence from them justify a suspicion that a Catholic feeling withheld him from them? Milton made the Gunpowder Conspiracy the theme of a regular poem: Shakspeare is altogether silent upon it. This conjecture acquires additional confirmation from the indisputable fact, that John Shakspeare, the father of the poet, lived and died in communion with the Church of Rome." This may or may not be a probable opinion. But what I would particularly notice is this: the extremely slight and negative evidence on which it is founded, and on which alone it could be founded; and how different it would be in the case of other great writers. Even setting aside directly controversial matter, no one could fail to see from their works, had they no other evidence, that Dante was a Roman Catholic, that Milton was a Protestant, that Byron was an infidel. And this, as I said, is a part only of the general proposition. It is not an exaggeration : we know nothing of Shakspeare from his writings. No doubt there is a difference between dramatic writers, whose business it is not to show themselves, and others. But this by no means does more than somewhat modify the question. To take some of the greatest names, it seems easy enough to form a general notion of the characters of Eschylus and Euripides, Racine and Corneille, from their dramas. And to take an extreme case, one often contrasted with that of Shakspeare, there is no part of Byron's writings more intensely impregnated with his own individuality, than his wonderful tragedy of Manfred. Now this, as I said, belongs to that which constitutes Shakspeare's real pre-eminence. There are several of the elements of real Poetry, in one or other of which, not indeed in their combination, he may have been excelled by others. Mr. Hallam has expressed it thus :-* "Others may have been as sublime, others may have been more pathetic, others may have equalled him in grace and purity of language, and have shunned some of his faults: but the philosophy of Shakspeare, his intimate searching out of the human heart, whether in the gnomic form of sentence, or in the dramatic exhibition of character, is a gift peculiarly his own.” To the positive part of this judgment about Shakspeare I shall hereafter return at present I would say in more detail, that in one or other of such points as these-sublimity, grandeur, fancy, melody of rhythm, gracefulness, and others, there may be many passages in Homer, many in the Georgics, many in Horace, very many in Dante, in Milton, a few in Wordsworth, not a few in Byron, Shelley, Tennyson, and probably in some others, which may excel any similar passage in Shakspeare. To verify this would be endless: I take, merely as an instance, one stanza, unsurpassed, as I believe, and unsurpassable, from those in Childe Harold on the death of the Princess Charlotte :-t * Introduction to the Literature of Europe, III. 575. + IV. 170. "Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made: I cannot hesitate to say that in its kind- -a kind easily understood without any attempt to describe it—this passage cannot be equalled in Shakspeare. Again, as to sublimity in Poetry, it has been said by a clever though eccentric writer, Mr. De Quincey, that Milton is, as he calls it, "sole sitting"-the sublime poet of the world. This claim may not be admitted to the full extent, but it seems not very far from the truth, or at least that Dante alone should be placed on the same elevation. I have said that in fancy there are others who may please us more than Shakspeare. I distinguish the Fancy from the Imagination, according to the rule adopted by the late Mr. Coleridge, and which those who can master that very difficult writer may see set forth at great length in his works. I will, however, quote, not from him but from his nephew, Mr. H. Nelson Coleridge, who has to some extent popularized his uncle's doctrines : as this point is of some interest, and as Mr. Coleridge's illustrations are drawn from Shakspeare. He says, quoting from Romeo and Juliet: "I conceive the following passage to be an instance of pure Fancy, as contradistinguished from Imagination :— * * Introduction to the Greek Classic Poets, Part I. p. 10, 1st Edit. |