The hand to which that glove belongs is described in the very perfection of poetry:

"Without the bed her other fair hand was,

On the green coverlet; whose perfect white
Show'd like an April daisy on the grass."

In the chamber of innocence Tarquin is painted with terrific grandeur, which is overpowering by the force of contrast:

"This said, he shakes aloft his Roman blade, Which, like a falcon towering in the skies, Coucheth the fowl below with his wings' shade." The complaint of Lucrece after Tarquin has departed was meant to be undramatic. The action advances not. The character develops not itself in the action. But the poet makes his heroine bewail her fate in every variety of lament that his boundless command of imagery could furnish. The letter to Collatine is written; a letter of the most touching simplicity:

"Thou worthy lord

Of that unworthy wife that greeteth thee,
Health to thy person! Next vouchsafe to afford
(If ever, love, thy Lucrece thou wilt see)
Some present speed to come and visit me:

So I commend me from our house in grief;
My woes are tedious, though my words are brief."
Again the action languishes, and again Lucrece
surrenders herself to her grief. The

"Skilful painting, made for Priam's Troy," is one of the most elaborate passages of the poem, essentially cast in an undramatic mould. But this is but a prelude to the catastrophe, where, if we mistake not, a strength of passion is put forth which is worthy him who drew the terrible agonies of Lear :

"Here with a sigh, as if her heart would break,

She throws forth Tarquin's name: 'He, he,' she says,
But more than he' her poor tongue could not speak;
Till after many accents and delays,
Untimely breathings, sick and short assays,

She utters this: He, he, fair lords, 't is he, That guides this hand to give this wound to me."" Malone, in his concluding remarks upon the 'Venus and Adonis,' and 'Lucrece,' says, "We should do Shakspeare injustice were we to try them by a comparison with more modern and polished productions, or with our present idea of poetical excellence." This was written in the year 1780-the period which rejoiced in the "polished productions" of Hayley and Miss Seward, and founded its "idea of poetical excellence" on some standard which, secure in its conventional forms, might depart as far as possible from simplicity and nature, to give us words without thought, arranged in verses without music. It would be injustice indeed

to Shakspere to try the 'Venus and Adonis,' and 'Lucrece,' by such a standard of "poetical excellence." But we have outlived that period. By way of apology for Shakspere, Malone adds, "that few authors rise much above the age in which they live." He further says, "The poems of Venus and Adonis' and the Rape of Lucrece,' whatever opinion may be now entertained of them, were certainly much admired in Shakspere's lifetime." This is consolatory. In Shakspere's lifetime there were a few men that the world has since thought somewhat qualified to establish an "idea of poetical excellence"Spenser, Drayton, Jonson, Fletcher, Chapman, for example. These were not much valued in Malone's golden age of "more modern and polished productions ;"--but let that pass. We are coming back to the opinions of this obsolete school; and we venture to think the majority of readers now will not require us to make an apology for Shakspere's poems.

If Malone thought it necessary to solicit indulgence for the Venus and Adonis,' and 'Lucrece,' he drew even a more timid breath when he ventured to speak of the 'Sonnets." "I do not feel any great propensity to stand forth as the champion of these compositions. However, as it appears to me that they have been somewhat underrated, I think it incumbent on me

to do them that justice to which they seem entitled." No wonder he speaks timidly. The great poetical lawgiver of his time-the greater than Shakspere, for he undertook to mend him, and refine him, and make him fit to be tolerated by the super-elegant intellects of the days of George III.—had pronounced that the 'Sonnets' were too bad even for his genius to make tolerable. He, Steevens, who would take up a play of Shakspere's in the condescending spirit with which a clever tutor takes up a smart boy's verses, -altering a word here, piecing out a line there, commending this thought, shaking his head at this false prosody, and acknowledging upon the whole that the thing is pretty well, seeing how much the lad has yet to learn-he sent forth his decree that nothing less than an act of parliament could compel the reading of Shakspere's 'Sonnets.' For a long time mankind bowed before the oracle; and the 'Sonnets' were not read. Wordsworth has told us something about this:

"There is extant a small volume of miscel

laneous poems in which Shakspeare expresses his feelings in his own person. It is not difficult to conceive that the editor, George Steevens, should have been insensible to the beauties of one portion of that volume, the 'Sonnets;' though there is not a part of the writings of this poet where is found, in an equal compass, a greater number of exquisite feelings felicitously expressed. But, from regard to the critic's own credit, he would not have ventured to talk of an act of parliament not being strong enough to compel the perusal of these, or any production of Shakspere, if he had not known that the people of England were ignorant of the treasures contained in those little pieces."

That ignorance has been removed; and no one has contributed more to its removal, by creating a school of poetry founded upon Truth and Nature, than Wordsworth himself. The critics of the last century have passed away :

"Peor and Baälim

- Forsake their temples dim."

By the operation of what great sustaining principle is it that we have come back to the just appreciation of "the treasures contained in those little pieces"? The poet-critic will

answer:

"There never has been a period, and perhaps never will be, in which vicious poetry, of some kind or other, has not excited more zealous admiration, and been far more generally read, than good; but this advantage attends the good, that the individual as well as the species, survives from age to age; whereas, of the depraved, though the species be immortal, the

Preface to Poetical Works.

individual quickly perishes; the object of present admiration vanishes, being supplanted by some other as easily produced, which, though no better, brings with it at least the irritation of novelty, with adaptation, more or less skilful, to the changing humours of the majority of those who are most at leisure to regard poetical works when they first solicit their attention. Is it the result of the whole, that, in the opinion of the writer, the judgment of the people is not to be respected? The thought is most injurious; and could the charge be brought against him, he would repel it with indignation. The people have already been justified, and their eulogium pronounced by implication, when it is said above-that, of good poetry, the individual, as well as the species, survives. And how does it survive but through the people? what preserves it but their intellect and their wisdom?

'Past and future are the wings

On whose support, harmoniously conjoin'd, Moves the great spirit of human knowledge.'-MS. "The voice that issues from this spirit is that vox populi which the Deity inspires. Foolish must he be who can mistake for this a local acclamation, or a transitory outcry-transitory though it be for years, local though from a nation! Still more lamentable is his error who can believe that there is anything of divine infallibility in the clamour of that small though loud portion of the community, ever governed by factitious influence, which, under the name of the PUBLIC, passes itself, upon the unthinking, for the PEOPLE." a

a Preface to Poetical Works.