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great contemporary's indifference to them with dismay. nd But Shakespeare, endowed with an universal genius, cregated his personages by unfettered instinct, and, most hap- pily, the times and circumstances were alike favorable to ve the development of the dramatic power by which alone the perfect results of that genius could have been exhibited. er Commencing his public life as an actor, he had the inestie mable advantage of gaining a preliminary knowledge of W all that was most likely to be effective on the stage, the f then conventionalities of which, moreover, by their very tsimplicity, and notwithstanding one or two drawbacks, were

eminently calculated for the fullest exercise of an author's rpoetic and imaginative faculties. Then there was a lanf guage which, having for some time past been emancipated t from the influence of literal terminations, had attained a form that gave matchless facilities for the display of nervous expression, and this in the brightest period of earnest and vigorous English thought. That language found in Shakespeare its felicitous and unrivaled exponent, and although on occasion his words either imperfectly represent the thought or are philologically erroneous, becoming thus to mere readers inextricably obscure, it may be confidently averred that there is not one speech, the essential meanings of which, if it were properly delivered, would not have been directly intelligible to the auditory. He had also ready prepared to his hands the matured outward form of a drama, its personages and their histories, all waiting for the hand that was to endow them with grace and life. It was then his unconscious mission through the most effective agency, that of the stage, to interpret human nature to the people. That interpretation was fortunately neither cramped nor distorted by the necessity of

adherence to literary rule, while the popular tastes sanctioned its uncontrolled application to every variety of character, through all kinds of probable or improbable situation, before fairy-land had been exiled, and the thunder of fie-foh-fum had lost its solemnity. Writing first for a living, and then for affluence, his sole aim was to please an audience, most of whom, be it remembered, were not only illiterate, but unable to either read or write. But this very ignorance of the large majority of his public, so far from being a disadvantage, enabled him to disregard restrictive canons and the tastes of scholars, to make that appeal to the heart and intellect which can only be universal when it reaches the intuitive perceptions of the lowliest, and by exhibiting his marvelous conceptions in the pristine form in which they had instinctively emanated, become the poet of nature instead of the poet of art. That Shakespeare wrote without effort, by inspiration not by design, was, so far as it has been recorded, the unanimous belief of his contemporaries and immediate successors. It was surely to this comprehensive truth, and not exclusively to the natural music of his verse, that Milton referred when, in two of the most exquisite lines respecting him that were ever penned, he speaks of Fancy's child warbling "his native wood-notes wild." If those notes had been cabined by philosophy and methodically cultivated, they might have been as intrinsically powerful, but they would assuredly have lost much of their present charm.

It cannot be absolutely observed of Shakespeare, as it has been of another great poet, that he woke up one morning to discover that he was famous, but there is reason for believing that the publication of his Lucrece, in

the May of this year, 1594, almost immediately secured for its author a higher reputation than would then have been established by the most brilliant efforts of dramatic art. This magnificent poem, which was originally proposed to be entitled the Ravishment of Lucrece, must have been written after the dedication to Venus and Adonis, Wand before the entry of the former work at Stationers'

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Hall, that is to say, at some time between April, 1593, and May, 1594. There can be no doubt of the estimagation in which it was held in the year of publication, the th author of an elegy on Lady Helen Branch, 1594, includun ing among our greater poetes,-"you that have writ lo of chaste Lucretia, whose death was witnesse of her spotlesse life;" and Drayton, in his Matilda, of the same date, speaking of Lucrece, "lately reviv'd to live another age." Shakespeare's new poem is also mentioned in Willobie's Avisa, published in September, 1594, the earliest contemporary work in which he is introduced by name; and in the following year, "Lucrecia-sweet Shakespeare," ut is a marginal note to Polimanteia, 1595, one which implies that it was then considered his best work. Later references testify its continued appreciation, and it was received as the perfect exposition of woman's chastity, a sequel, or ld rather perhaps a companion, to the earlier one of her profligacy. The contemporaries of Shakespeare allude Tmore than once to the two poems as being his most important works, and as those on which his literary distinction chiefly rested.

The prefixes to the Venus and Lucrece are, in the presence of so few biographical memorials, inestimable records of their author. The two dedications to Lord Southampton and the argument to the second work are the only

non-dramatic prose compositions of Shakespeare that have descended to modern times, while the former are, alas. the sole remaining samples of his epistolary writings. The latter are of course by far the more interesting, and, making allowances for the inordinate deference to rank which then prevailed, they are perfect examples of the judicious fusion of independence with courtesy in a suggestive application for a favor, and in expressions of gratitude for its concession.

In the June of this same year, 1594, Titus Andronicus was performed at Newington Butts by the Lord Chamberlain's, then acting in conjunction with the Lord Admiral's, Servants, the poet most likely taking a part in the representation. The earliest definite notice, however, of his appearance on the stage, is one in which he is recorded as having been a player in two comedies that were acted. before Queen Elizabeth in the following December, at Greenwich Palace. He was then described as one of the Lord Chamberlain's Servants, and was associated in the performances with Kemp and Burbage, the former of whom was the most favorite comedian of the day. It is not known to what company or companies Shakespeare belonged previously to his adhesion to the one last named; but the probabilities are these. It is well ascertained that Henslowe was an exceedingly grasping manager, and it is therefore, most unlikely that he would have speculated in new plays that were not intended for immediate use. We may then fairly assume that every drama composed for him would be, in the first instance, produced by the actors that occupied his theater when the manuscript was purchased. Now, as Shakespeare was an actor as well as a dramatist, there is an inclination

towards the belief that he would have been engaged at Henslowe's theater when employed to write for that personage, and, if we accept the theory of early producantion, would have belonged to those companies by whom the first representations of his dramas were given. If this view be taken, it would appear not altogether unlikely Su that the poet was one of Lord Strange's actors in March, 51592; one of Lord Pembroke's a few months later; and that he had joined the company of the Earl of Sussex in or before January, 1594.

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There were rare doings at Gray's Inn in the Christmas holidays of the year last mentioned. The students of or that house had usually excelled in their festive arrangements, and now they were making preparations for revels de on a scale of exceptional magnificence, sports that were te to include burlesque performances, masques, plays and dances, as well as processions through London and on the Thames. A mock Court was held at the Inn under the presidency of one Henry Helmes, a Norfolk gentleman, who was elected Prince of Purpoole, the ancient name of the manor, other students being elected to serve under him in all the various offices then appertaining to royalty and government. The grand entertainment of all was arranged for the evening of Innocent's Day, December 28, on which occasion high scaffolds had been erected in the hall for the accommodation of the revelers and the principal guests, a larger number of the latter having received invitations. Among the guests, the students of the Inner Temple, joining in the humor of their professional neighbors, and appearing Tas an embassy credited by their Emporer, arrived about nine o'clock "very gallantly appointed." The ambas