That Shakespeare erredand sinned at times like others, we know from the passionate confessions of his in considerable portions of which the self-reference is too plain be denied ; but that, whatever his occasional frailties, he was essentiallv a man of noble and estimable character, there is a complete concurrence of testimony. lie was obviously of most kin Ily and lovable dispositioes; his " pleasurable wit and good nature" made lihn delight fulos a companion; :Mil it was as "gentle Will Shakespeare" that he was famil iarly known to his contemporaries. In particular, with his associates and rivals in writing for the stage, his relations would seem to have been 'of the most cordial and even endearing kind. The gruff Ben Jonson writes of him after his death: " he was honest, and of an open and free nature," assures us that in " his well-turned and true filed lines" we see but an authentic reflex of his beautiful "mind and manners;" and avers that he "honors his memory only on this side idolatry." As a slight shadow on this pleasing picture. it has been shrewdly surmised that he was not very happy with h's wife. Evidence of this has been sought in certain passages in his dramas; bat obvi ously any inference from these is most precarious. The neglect of her i» his will, except in one curt clause interlined, dismissing her with a legacy of "his second-boat lied," 'nigh* well seem much more decisive, till Mr., Charles Knight greatly reduced its importance by showing that, the will apart, by the mere operation of the English law, the poet's widow was entitled to dower, and thus amply provided for. There is thus (though the query of why second-best, if a bed at all was to he left her, may r crimps have a certain pertinence) no very firm basis of proof for the domestic unhappiness of Shakespeare. Still, if anything in his life is certain, it is this, that, spending great plirt of his time in Loudon, the poet did not find it essential to his felicity there to have the satiety of his wife; as probably she, on the other hand, though her husband had gone to the metropolis, was content to abide in Stratford, since it seemed to hint the desirable arrangement. It is fair, we think, to infer from this that the affection subsisting be tween the two was a little on the hither side of enthusiasm.
'l'o discourse here at this date of the genius of Shakespeare would be only to promul gate platitudes. The lofty eulogy of Dryden—" He was the man who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul"—br.s since been generally acquiesced in. Asdramatist, he is admittedly in the world without a peer; as poet (abstracting the differential forms), there are but one or two names in literature even to be named beside his; and dismissing his claims in either kind, we have ill his works such a treimiry of gnomic wisdom on all matters of human concerment as no other writer has ever bequeathed to the world. If we add, that this greatest of writers is one of the most unequal—that his works contain more than might be wished of what, as the product of such a mind, we need not scruple to call ruLbish—and that nearly every vice in writing might be illustrated from them almost at will, we say simply what is patent to every reader not blinded by the stupid and mindless idolatry which too often of late in many quarters has displaced a rational admiration.
The only works of Shakespeare certainly published under his own hand were the two poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Luerece, which appeared in 1593-94 respec tively. As was naturally to be looked for in the case of pieces on the stage so popular, certain of his dramas found their way from time to time into print, but no authoritative edition of any of them was issued during his lifetime. The first collected edition of his dramas was issued in 1623, by Heminge and Condell, his friends and co-proprietors in the Blackfriars and Globe theaters. A second edition followed in 1632; a third, in 1664; and a fourth in 1685. In 1 709 appeared the edition of Rowe, with a prefatory sketch of the poet's life. Of the " Shakespearian literature" which followed, and the various re-issues of the dramas, with such masses of critical commentary and emenda tion as no other writer has ever perhaps been made the subject of, it would be hopeless to attempt an account. It must suffice to mention as successive editors Pope, Theobald,
sir Thomas Hanmer, Warburton, Capell, Stevens, Malone, and Dr. Johnson, whose elaborate introductory essay—whatever may be thought of the insolence of much of his criticism of the plays in detail—is perhaps on the whole. as an estimate of the genius of the poet, as satisfactory as any that has since been written. Down to our own time, there has been no remission of activity in this field of literary labor. More recently, the intelligent industry of Mr. Charles Knight specially deserves mention: and along with his may he given the names of Mr. Dyce, Mr. John Payne Collier, and Mr. Singer—all of whom have put forth elaborate and valuable editions of the dramas. An important edition was issued from Cambridge in 1863-66, under the superintendence of two gen tlemen of unquestioned scholarly competence. W. G. Clark and W. Aldis Wright.
In Germany, Shakespeare has long been thoroughly naturalized; and the German enthusiasm in regard of him is, if possible, even greater than our own. It was the cele brated Lessing who first decisively introduced him to notice in a series of essays. exhibit ing the immeasurable superiority of his art to that of the pseudo-classical models of the French stage. Since his time, many of the most gifted of his countrymen have devoted themselves to the work of Shakespearian criticism and elucidation. From Goethe we have some exquisite fragments, most notably the criticism of Handel; occurring in his Wdhelnx ifeisler; and after his, the names of Tieck. A. W. Schlegel (whose Lectures, of date 1800-1811. almost constitute an era in this special department of literature). Franz Horn, and Gervinus (an English translation of whose elaborate commentaries has been published), occur as the most illustrious in connection with the present topic. By Tieck and Seldepx1 together. the work of translation was undertaken; and the result of their joint labors, which takes rank as the standard German Shakespeare, ranks also, in the opinion of competent judges, as a consummate and almost unique specimen of excellence in the translator's art. It has not unfrequently been alleged that. till the Germans made the discovery for them, the English people knew nothing of the greatness of Shakespeare. This is out the face of it ridiculous, The single sentence we have cited from Dryden, and the practical acceptance of it implied in the unexampled attention and industry which never ceased to be directed to the subject, sufficiently of themselves confute so idle a notion. What the Germans really did (and along with their services in the matter, must be included those of our countrymen Coleridge, whose impulse and point of view, at least, if not something considerably more, were derived from German sources) was somewhat to methodize and enlighten for its an admiration never deficient, but always, like Jonson's regard for the memory of his friend, only on this side idolatry." 'I he old notion of Shakespeare was that of a genius in power and plenitude unrivaled, but licentious in its modes of operation, and more or less chaotic in its results; "wild above rule or art, enormous bliss." The. new German criticism exhibited in the chaos the orderly outlines of a world; co-ordinated the confusion under rules till then unsuspected, and showed in what before had seemed irregular exercise of power admitted to be mag nificent, obedience not less magnificent to a law of artistic evolution. It made ealcqh able, in a word, the orbit of a luminary which . had somewhat uncomfortably seemed to be sweeping-at- rinidom through space. But the English people did not need it to renal the luminary to them; throughout and the first, they had seen and devoutly worshiped-it. Also, to a great extent, it is due to the German enthusiasm of exposition, that over the whole continent, and wherever. literature is intelligently studied—some little lingering. dying remnant of French prejudice. except—the poet par excellence of England is now finally enthroned as the poet par excellehee of our whole modern world and civilization. A household edition of the works of Shakespeare. freed from objec tionable passages, hits been published by W. and R. Chambers, in 10 volumes.