Oh if (I say) you look upon this verse It is impossible to read these effusions of Shakespear's genius without melancholy feelings. His principles, alas! were not equal to his intellectual gifts. Verses such as these-and we could quote many stronger could not, we repeat, be addressed to an "airy nothing:" they were addressed to flesh and blood. There is, indeed, reason to suspect that the wife and children of the poet were never allowed to reside with, perhaps not This is confirmed by even to visit, him in London. more than one circumstance. Among the most corroborative is the one, that after 1584 we read of no more children borne to him by his lawful wife. How account for this except on the hypothesis of a separation? In little more than two years, viz. from 1582 to the close of 1584, she bore him three children; yet after Had there the birth of Judith we hear of no more. been any more, their names would appear in the register either of Stratford or of some other church: had there been more, we should assuredly have heard of them, or seen some mention of them in his will. This fact alone will, we submit, justify the inference that Shakespear's wife did not reside in London; that she remained at Stratford, while he pursued his dramatic avocations in a city at no period much distinguished for the moral virtues, and then more corrupt perhaps than at any other time. So much for the life, so much for the moral character of Shakespear. In conformity with the established practice, it may be right to say something of his intellectual. The subject has little novelty to recommend it; and we shall be as compendious as possible. The learning of Shakespear is a subject that has At the first view, occupied a hundred ingenious pens. it might seem impossible that one, whose father's circumstances were so straitened, who married at so early an age, and who embraced a profession above all others favourable to dissipation, should have the means of col |