imagine," can any one doubt he is listening as much to Shakespeare's voice as to Claudio's? Again, when, in "King Lear," we are told

Their going hence, even as their coming hither:
Ripeness is all,"

it is obvious that it is Shakespeare, even more than Edgar, who is speaking. When, at the end of "The Taming of the Shrew," Katherine delivers her final sentiments on the proper relation of the sexes, one knows one is harkening to the deep-seated convictions of Shakespeare himself. Finally, when, in "Troilus and Cressida " the wise Ulysses says

"Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark what discord follows,"

pure white light is cast on the opinions of Shakespeare respecting Law, Government, and Society. The Röntgen rays of true, penetrating criticism enable one to know Shakespeare, as the phrase is, through and through, better than any other person.

My last observation here will be one I never tire of repeating, since it has as yet met with only imperfect welcome, because it runs counter to the tastes of this Age, which happily is not the ultimate Court of Appeal on such matters, that the essential greatness of a Poet depends not on mere emotional Fancy, but on the combined capacity to have a thorough and complete apprehension of persons, things, human nature, and life generally as

they are, and then to transform and transfigure these into Poetry by an all-powerful Imagination, assisted by an appropriate and inexhaustible vocabulary. It is because in Shakespeare that combination is consummate, he is the greatest of all Poets.

ALFRED AUSTIN.

VENUS AND ADONIS1

Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo
Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua.2

This poem, the earliest of Shakespeare's works to be published, was first issued in Quarto in 1593. Another Quarto edition appeared in 1594, and there were octavo reprints of 1596, 1599, 1600, 1602 (two issues), 1617, 1620, 1627 (Edinburgh), 1630 (two issues), 1636; a chap-book reissue came out in 1675.

2 Ovid, Amores, Lib. I. elegy xv, 11. 35–36. An English verse translation of selections from Ovid's Amores appeared in a volume entitled "Epigrammes and Elegies. By I[ohn] D[avies] and Christopher] Marlowe]." Though undated, the book seems to have been published about 1597. The rendering of Ovid's Amores is there assigned to Marlowe, and Shakespeare's quotation is there translated thus:

Let base conceited wits admire vile things;
Fair Phoebus lead me to the Muses' springs.

Marlowe died June 1, 1593, and this rendering must, on the supposition of his authorship, have anticipated the composition of Venus and Adonis. A revised and corrected version of the same translation of the elegy is placed on the lips of the character called Ovid, at the close of the first scene of Ben Jonson's Poetaster, 1602. Jonson was doubtless responsible for the revised version, in which Shakespeare's motto is rendered quite differently, thus:

Kneele hindes to trash: me let bright Phoebus swell,
With cups full flowing from the Muses well.

TO THE

RIGHT HONORABLE HENRIE WRIOTHESLEY,

EARLE OF SOUTHAMPTON, AND BARON OF TITCHFIELD.1

Right Honourable,

I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my vnpolisht lines to your Lordship, nor how the worlde will censure me for choosing so strong a proppe to support so weake a burthen, onelye if your Honour seeme but pleased, I account my selfe highly praised, and vowe to take aduantage of all idle houres, till I haue honoured you with some grauer labour. But if the first heire of my inuention proue deformed, I shall be sorie it had so noble a god-father: and neuer after eare so barren a land, for fear it yeeld me still so bad a haruest, I leaue it to your Honourable suruey, and your Honor to your hearts content which I wish may alwaies answere your owne wish, and the worlds hopefull expectation.

Your Honors in all dutie,

William Shakespeare.

1 Lord Southampton, born on October 6, 1573, succeeded his father, the second Earl of Southampton, just before his eighth birthday, and was nineteen and a half years old when Shakespeare addressed this letter to him. An intimate associate of the Earl of Essex from youth upwards, he was already prominent in court circles, where his handsome person and brilliant accomplishments brought him the favour of Queen Elizabeth. From 1593 onwards numerous dedications attest his devotion to literature and its authors, with whom he lived on great terms of intimacy. He suffered imprisonment from 1601 to 1603 owing to his complicity in Essex's rebellion, but was restored to favour by King James I. He died on November 10, 1624.

2 This vow was fulfilled by the production a year later in 1594 of Shakespeare's second narrative poem, The Rape of Lucrece, which was also dedicated to the Earl of Southampton.

These words can only mean that this poem was Shakespeare's first literary design. It was certainly the first work of his to be published. But before its publication he had written at least four original plays, viz.: Love's Labour's Lost, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, A Comedy of Errors, and Romeo and Juliet, and had revised as many more by other hands, viz., Titus Andronicus, and the three parts of Henry VI.

eare] plough; cf. Sonnet iii, 5: "unear❜d."

A reference to the Earl of Southampton's youthful promise.