free; though we can hardly doubt, that with so much of heaven there must have been mingled somewhat of earth. If we may credit Ben Jonson, his most intimate friend, and one of the purest men of the age, his character as a man was itself an exemplification of the beauties which blossomed out so divinely in his works:

"Look how the father's face

Lives in his issue: even so the race

Of Shakspeare's mind and manners brightly shines,
In his well turned and true filed lines."

From all, indeed, that is known of his subsequent life and character, we must clear him from any charge of youthful dissoluteness. The virtues of the man seem to have been fit companions for the gifts of the poet. And, indeed, such exquisite harmony and proportion of faculties, all playing into and tempering each other; an intellect of such sure-sighted, far-seeing vision; a heart so clean of vicious propensities, so full of inborn grace and chastity; and an imagination so pregnant with all pure and lovely forms, might well have fortified him against far more corrupting influences than those about him. And, on the other hand, in an age and nation which could both produce and appreciate such spirits as Spenser, and Raleigh, and Sidney; an age uniting the utmost vigor of passion with the utmost chastity of principle; pervaded with the keenest sensibility of honor and the profoundest loyalty to sex; when purity formed the shrine where chivalry knelt, and love itself became a religion, the soul of which was "awe of womanhood;❞— surely, in such an age and nation, a mind of far less inward strength and rectitude than Shakspeare's, could

hardly have failed to have walked unscathed and unharmed. I have made these remarks in order to rescue, if possible, the name of Shakspeare from the sacrilegious hands of a set of commonplace moralists, who, delighting to scent out and feed upon the ulcers of genius, so often verify the adage, “death loves a shining mark," and remind us of Virgil's

"Diræ obscenæque volucres;

Turba sonans predam pedibus circumvolat uncis;
Polluit ore dapes."

But though no stain appears on the private character of either Shakspeare or his matron bride, the union did not prove a fortunate one. We can hardly say, indeed,

"All heaven

And happy constellations on the match

Shed their selectest influence."

No charge has ever been breathed against the lady; but her being left at Stratford by her husband during his long residence in London, is evidence that a decided, though peaceful, and perhaps mutual estrangement, had taken place between them. Though purely a love match, it does not appear to have been made in heaven, and perhaps the subsequent indifference was rather the misfortune of both than the fault of either. Himself eight years her junior, Shakspeare may have been at once too old to be her subject, and too young to be her lord.

While conjugal estrangement was thus loosening the ties that bound him to Stratford, youthful mischievousness was preparing an occasion for his departure to the metropolis. There was a class of men in England then, as now, whom nature had specially gifted and

Of this class

commissioned to preserve their game. was one Sir Thomas Lucy, a Warwickshire esquire, who had on his manor some deer. We have no evidence that Shakspeare was given to poaching; but there was probably something so inexpressibly ludicrous in this noble knight's game-preserving morality, as to provoke a spirit of mischievous adventure in a mind so redundant of life and mirth as Shakspeare's. In an excursion of this sort upon his knightship's grounds, fortunately for all but the knight and himself, Shakspeare was caught in a supposed attempt at stealing deer; which supposed attempt so much exasperated this powerful and pious preserver of his game, as to render Shakspeare's longer stay at Stratford out of the question. I probably need not say that this Warwickshire esquire, once so rich and mighty, is now known only as the block over which the Warwickshire peasant stumbled into immortality. And this so trifling adventure of boyish fun, which has so often been seized upon “to point a moral or adorn a tale," by the hungry hunters after great men's sins, who, if they could not find better illustrations in their own history, ought, surely, to have been flogged for dulness;-this so trifling youthful frolic, I say, was altogether insignificant, save as it was pregnant with the fate of English literature.

To escape, it is said, the angry clutches of Sir Thomas, Shakspeare, at the age of about twenty-three, set out for the metropolis. Of the circumstances of this flight, so ominous for him, so auspicious for us, we know nothing whatever. For a homeless, and friendless, and pennyless youth, like Shakspeare, thus to cast himself into such a howling wilderness of people as London,

outwardly it is one of the most desperate adventures in literary history. What could he do there? what could he expect or even hope for? But,

"There was a divinity that shaped his ends,
Rough hew them how he would.”

Insuperable as his outward difficulties appear to us, this strongest, and therefore stillest of mortals, seems to have conquered them almost without knowing it. That his keenly-susceptible spirit dropped some natural tears on leaving his native Stratford, and tearing himself away from the objects to which his feelings had earliest grown, cannot indeed be doubted; but it was from sweet, though sad remembrances, not from gloomy forebodings, that they sprung. Sufficiently provided for within, he had need of little from without." Free from inward distractions and misgivings, from remorse and self-reproach, and animated with the divine presentiment which it is the prerogative of genius to feel, “his lightly-moved and all-conceiving spirit" stept forth, rejoicing like the sun to run his course, carrying light in his countenance, and scattering day from his footsteps; and all outward difficulties fled from the glance of him who had no difficulties within. Nay, of the mountains which seem so impassable to us, he is probably made aware, if at all, only by the greatness of view to which they raise him; in the fulness and spontaneousness of his powers, he ascends them so calmly, and smoothly, and easily, that the growing beauty and vastness of the prospect seem coming to him, instead of his toiling and struggling up to them.

From the first, nature had evidently designed and fit

ted Shakspeare to be a sort of mediator between herself and her children; to bring her down to us, and raise us up to her. To this end, knowing best what to do with her own, she had kept him in her eye; to this end, his feelings and faculties had thriven amid her bounties and amenities, until he should become thoroughly formed and furnished for the work. But how should he ascertain in what form and language he could best discharge the task assigned him? "Even in this was heaven ordinant." It was the custom of the London players at that time, to make occasional excursions into the country villages. Stratford, being fond of theatrical representations, of course became one of their favourite resorts, and was thus visited by stage performances at a time when Shakspeare was of an age not only to enjoy them, but also to make some acquaintance with the performers. In a mind so replete with dramatic power, the sight of these exhibitions, rude as they were, could hardly have failed to awaken a corresponding inclination. Of these players, moreover, three of the most distinguished, Thomas Greene, John Heminge, and Richard Burbage, were natives of Stratford or its vicinity, and probably well known to Shakspeare before they entered the theatre. On arriving at the metropolis, therefore, he had no resource but to seek out his old acquaintances, and ask for admission into their company. For him, genius, inclination, and opportunity, had now met together; and, though doubtless admitted at first to some very humble station, he soon rose to respectability as an actor, and to distinction as a writer of plays. His connection with the stage, either as actor, or proprietor, or both, continued about twenty years. His share in