No. XX.

SHAKSPEARE AND ÆSCHYLUS COMPARED.

THERE is no ancient poet that bears so close a resemblance in point of genius to any of the moderns, as Eschylus bears to Shakspeare.Eschylus is justly styled the father of tragedy, but this is not to be interpreted as if he was the inventor of it: Shakspeare, with equal justice, claims the same title, and his originality is qualified with the same exception. The Greek tragedy was not more rude and undigested when Eschylus brought it into shape, than the English tragedy was when Shakspeare began to write; if, therefore, it be granted that he had no aids from the Greek theatre, (and I think this is not likely to be disputed,) so far these great masters are upon equal ground. Eschylus was a warrior of high repute, of a lofty generous spirit, and deep as it should seem in the erudition of his times. In all these particulars he has great advantage over our countryman, who was humbly born, and, as it is generally thought, unlearned. Eschylus had the whole epic of Homer in his hands, the Iliad, Odyssey, and that prolific source of dramatic fable, the Ilias Minor; he had also a great fabu

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lous creation to resort to amongst his own divinities, characters ready defined, and an audience whose superstition was prepared for every thing he could offer; he had, therefore, a firmer and broader stage (if I may be allowed the expression) under his feet than Shakspeare had. His fables in general are Homeric, and yet it does not follow that we can pronounce for Shakspeare that he is more original in his plots, for I understand that late researches have traced him in all, or nearly all. Both poets added so much machinery and invention of their own in the conduct of their fables, that whatever might have been the source, still their streams had little or no taste of the spring they flowed from. In point of character we have better grounds to decide, and yet it is but justice to observe that it is not fair to bring a mangled poet in comparison with one who is entire. In his divine personages Eschylus has the field of heaven, and indeed of hell also, to himself; in his heroic and military characters he has never been excelled; he had too good a model within his own bosom to fail of making those delineations natural. In his imaginary beings also he will be found a respectable, though not an equal, rival of our poet; but in the variety of character, in all the nicer touches of nature, in all the extravagances of caprice and humour, from the boldest feature down to the minutest foible, Shakspeare stands alone: such persons as he

delineates never came into the contemplation of Eschylus as a poet; his tragedy has no dealing with them; the simplicity of the Greek fable, and the great portion of the drama filled up by the chorus, allow of little variety of character; and the most which can be said of Eschylus in this particular is, that he never offends against nature or propriety, whether his cast is in the terrible or pathetic, the elevated or the simple. His versification with the intermixture of lyric composition is more various than that of Shakspeare; both are lofty and sublime in the extreme, abundantly metaphorical and sometimes extravagant :—

Nubes et inania captat.

This may be said of each poet in his turn; in each the critic, if he is in search for defects, will readily enough discover

In scenam missus magno cum pondere versus.

Both were subject to be hurried on by an uncontrollable impulse, nor could nature alone suffice for either. Eschylus had an apt creation of imaginary beings at command

He could call spirits from the vasty deep,

and they would come.-Shakspeare having no such creation in resource, boldly made one of his own; if Eschylus therefore was invincible, he owed it to his armour, and that, like the armour of Eneas, was the work of the gods; but the unassisted in

vention of Shakspeare seized all and more than superstition supplied to Eschylus.

CUMBERLAND.

Observer, vol. ii. p. 225, and p. 231 to p. 235.

No. XXI.

SHAKSPEARE AND CHAUCER COMPARED.

-THE Troilus and Cressida of Shakspeare has for; its main foundation the poem of Chaucer. The Troilus and Creseide of the elder bard seems long to have been regarded by our ancestors in, a manner somewhat similar to that in which the Æneid was viewed among the Romans, or the Iliad by the ancient Greeks. Every reader who advanced any pretensions to poetical taste, felt himself obliged to speak of it as the great classical regular English poem, which reflected the highest lustre upon our language. Shakspeare therefore, as a man, felt it but a just compliment to the merits of the great! father of our poetry, to introduce his characters in a tangible form, and with all the advantages and allurements he could bestow upon them before the eyes of his countrymen; and as a constructor of dramas, accustomed to consult their tastes and partialities, he conceived that he could not adopt a more promising plan than to entertain them with a tale already familiar to their minds, which had been the associate and delight of their early years, which every man had himself praised, and had heard applauded by all the tasteful and the wise...

We are not, however, left to probability and con