No. XXV. SHAKSPEARE COMPARED WITH CHAPMAN, HEYWOOD, MIDDLETON, BROOKE, SIDNEY, AND BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. WITH CHAPMAN. Of all the English play-writers, Chapman perhaps approaches nearest to Shakspeare in the descriptive and didactic, in passages which are less purely dramatic. Dramatic imitation was not his talent. He could not go out of himself, as Shakspeare could shift at pleasure, to inform and animate other existences; but in himself he had an eye to perceive, and a soul to embrace, all forms. He would have made a great epic poet, if indeed he has not abundantly shown himself to be one; for his Homer is not so properly a translation as the stories of Achilles and Ulysses re-written. The earnestness and passion which he has put into every part of these poems, would be incredible to a reader of mere modern translations. His almost Greek zeal for the honor of his heroes is only paralleled by that fierce spirit of Hebrew bigotry, with which Milton, as if personating one of the zealots of the old law, clothed himself when he sate down to paint the acts of Sampson against the uncircumcised. The great obstacle to Chapman's translations being read is their unconquerable quaintness. He pours out in the same breath the most just and natural and the most violent and forced expressions. He seems to grasp whatever words come first to hand during the impetus of inspiration, as if all other must be inadequate to the divine meaning. But passion (the all in all in poetry) is everywhere present, raising the low, dignifying the mean, and putting sense into the absurd. He makes his readers glow, weep, tremble, take any affection which he pleases, be moved by words or in spite of them, be disgusted and overcome their disgust. I have often thought that the vulgar misconception of Shakspeare, as of a wild irregular genius, "in whom great faults are compensated by great beauties," would be really true, applied to Chapman. But there is no scale by which to balance such disproportionate subjects as the faults and beauties of a great genius. To set off the former with any fairness against the latter, the pain which they give us should be in some proportion to the pleasure which we receive from the other. As these transport us to the highest heaven, those should steep us in agonies infernal." This critique on Chapman will add no little strength to the supposition of Mr. Boaden, that the magnificent eulogy on Shakspeare, commencing A mind reflecting ages past, &c. was the production of this fervid and energetic translator of WITH HEYWOOD. HEYWOOD is a sort of prose Shakspeare. His scenes are to the full as natural and affecting. But we miss the poet, that which in Shakspeare always appears out and above the surface of the nature. Heywood's characters, his country gentlemen, &c., are exactly what we see (but of the best kind of what we see) in life. Shakspeare makes us believe, while we are among his lovely creations, that they are nothing but what we are familiar with, as in dreams new things seem old; but we awake, and sigh for the difference." Homer, especially if we recollect that the quaintness here justly complained of, is by no means constantly found in the minor pieces of Chapman. Of the astonishing fertility of some of the dramatic poets at this period, and of their equally astonishing indifference about the preservation of their works, the following preface of Heywood to his play, entitled "The English Traveller," will afford a most remarkable example, more peculiarly so when the reader learns that, out of the extraordinary number of pieces mentioned in this preface, only twenty-five have descended to posterity, the remainder having been in a great measure lost through the negligence of their parent. "If, reader, thou hast of this play been an auditor, there is less apology to be used by entreating thy patience. This tragicomedy (being one reserved amongst two hundred and twenty in which I had either an entire hand, or at the least a main finger) coming accidentally to the press, and I having intelligence thereof, thought it not fit that it should pass as filius populi, a bastard without a father to acknowledge it: true it is T WITH MIDDLETON. THOUGH SOME resemblance may be traced between the charms in Macbeth, and the incantations in the Witch of Middleton, which is supposed to have preceded it, this coincidence will not detract much from the originality of Shakspeare. His witches are distinguished from the witches of Middleton by essential differences. These are creatures to whom man or woman plotting some dire mischief, might resort for occasional consultation. Those originate deeds of blood, and begin bad impulses to men. From the moment that their eyes first meet with Macbeth's, he is spellbound. That meeting sways his destiny. He can never break the fascination. These witches can hurt the body; those have power over the that my plays are not exposed to the world in volumes, to bear the title of works (as others), one reason is that many of them by shifting and change of companies have been negligently lost. Others of them are still retained in the hands of some actors, who think it against their peculiar profit to have them come into print, and a third that IT NEVER WAS ANY GREAT AM BITION IN ME TO BE IN THIS KIND VOLUMINOUSLY READ. All that I have further to say at this time is only this: censure, It is highly probable, I think, that such would have been precisely the reasons alleged by Shakspeare, had he been called upon to account for his inattention to, and indifference about the fate of his dramas. soul. Hecate in Middleton has a son, a low buffoon the hags of Shakspeare have neither child of their own, nor seem to be descended from any parent. They are foul anomalies, of whom we know not whence they are sprung, nor whether they have beginning or ending. As they are without human passions, so they seem to be without human relations. They come with thunder and lightning, and vanish to airy music. This is all we know of them. Except Hecate, they have no names, which heightens their mysteriousness. The names, and some of the properties, which Middleton has given to his hags, excite smiles. The Weird Sisters are serious things. Their presence cannot co-exist with mirth. But, in a lesser degree, the witches of Middleton are fine creations. Their power too is, in some measure, over the mind. They raise jars, jealousies, strifes, like a thick scurf o'er life. WITH FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE. THE tragedies of Lord Brooke might with more propriety have been termed political treatises than plays. Their author has strangely contrived to make passion, character, and interest, of the highest order, subservient to the expression of state dogmas and mysteries. He is nine parts Machiavel and Tacitus for one part Sophocles or Seneca. In this writer's estimate of the faculties of his own mind, the understanding must have held a most |