United States or Lebanon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Shakspeare's competitors in the dramatic walk are pretty well known, and if those of them who have even acquired a considerable reputation, a Lilly, a Marlow, a Heywood, are still very far below him, we can hardly imagine that the author of a work, which rises so high beyond theirs, could have remained unknown.
Ben Jonson, though we have strained his few words of regard and panegyric, had no suspicion of the elastic fame whose first vibrations he was attempting. He no doubt thought the praise he has conceded to him generous, and esteemed himself, out of all question, the better poet of the two. If it need wit to know wit, according to the proverb, Shakspeare's time should be capable of recognizing it.
Delisser & Proctor. 32mo. pp. 227. 50 cts. Shakspeare's Legal Acquirements Considered. By John Lord Campbell, LL.D., F.R.S.E. In a Letter to J. Payne Collier, Esq., F.S.A. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 146. 75 cts. The Pillar of Fire; or, Israel in Bondage. By Rev. J.H. Ingraham, Author of "The Prince of the House of David." New York. Pudney & Russell. 12mo. pp. 600. $1.25.
His sons, Guiderius and Arviragus, who made their appearance in Shakspeare's play of "Cymbeline," succeeded their father, and, refusing to pay tribute to the Romans, brought on another invasion. Guiderius was slain, but Arviragus afterward made terms with the Romans, and reigned prosperously many years.
Shakspeare's picture of the witches is truly magical: in the short scenes where they enter, he has created for them a peculiar language, which, although composed of the usual elements, still seems to be a collection of formulae of incantation. The sound of the words, the accumulation of rhymes, and the rhythmus of the verse, form, as it were, the hollow music of a dreary witch-dance.
We set up our paltry little rods to measure Heaven immeasurable, as if, in comparison to that, Newton's mind or Pascal's or Shakspeare's was any loftier than mine; as if the ray which travels from the sun would reach me sooner than the man who blacks my boots.
She went over anew the proofs, the clues, the enigmas, the pregnant sentences, which she had discovered in Bacon's letters and elsewhere, and now was frightened to perceive that they did not point so definitely to Shakspeare's tomb as she had heretofore supposed.
I find a great truth in this saying. Shakspeare's Art is not Artifice; the noblest worth of it is not there by plan or precontrivance. It grows up from the deeps of Nature, through this noble sincere soul, who is a voice of Nature.
Telford's suspension bridge was of course one of the narrowest that could be selected, in consequence of which the ebbing and flowing torrent rushes through it with such violence, that, except where there is back water, it is often impossible for a small boat to pull against it; besides which, the gusts of wind which come over the tops, down the ravines, and round the sides of the neighboring mountains, are so sudden, and occasionally so violent, that it is as dangerous to sail as it is difficult to row; in short, the wind and the water, sometimes playfully and sometimes angrily, seem to vie with each other like some of Shakspeare's fairies in exhibiting before the stranger the utmost variety of fantastic changes which it is in the power of each to assume."
This piece was acknowledged by Dryden to be a work, but a youthful work of Shakspeare's. It is most undoubtedly his, and it has been admitted into several late editions of his works. The supposed imperfections originate in the circumstance, that Shakspeare here handled a childish and extravagant romance of the old poet Gower, and was unwilling to drag the subject out of its proper sphere.
Word Of The Day