Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new.

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"Oh, for my sake do you with fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide,

Than public means, which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand;
And almost thence my nature is subdued

To what it works in, like the dyer's hand."

When, in the maturity of his powers, Shakspeare turned away from London and sought the sweet places of his innocent childhood, we can almost hear him, in the words of Prospero, abjuring his magic, dismissing the spiritual creations of his imagination, and looking to the tranquil village he was born in, where

"Every third thought shall be my grave."

The highest glory of Shakspeare's poetry is its spirituality. With all its quick sympathies with things of sight, it is full of the life by faith. Kindred at once to earth and heaven, it realizes what Wordsworth, with a noble image, grandly tells :

"Truth shows a glorious face

While, on that isthmus which commands

The councils of both worlds, she stands."

There is many a trace to show how deep was Shakspeare's sense of the perishable nature of the things of time. How deeper still was his sense of eternity and its glories! Reflect on that fine passage in "Antony and Cleopatra," when the Roman feels that his own fortunes and ancient Egypt's power are lost forever:

HIS TREATMENT OF HOLY SUBJECTS.

"Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish;

A vapour, sometime, like a bear, or lion,
A towered citadel, a pendant rock,

A forkéd mountain, or blue promontory

With trees upon't, that nod unto the world

And mock our eyes with air; thou hast seen these signs;
They are black vesper's pageants."

"That which is now a horse, even with a thought
The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct,

As water is in water."

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"Eros, now thy captain is

Even such a body: here I am Antony;

Yet cannot hold this visible shape."

Now, with this compare the hopeful, faithful spirit in a passage which has been considered, perhaps, the most sublime in Shakspeare:

"Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;

There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'st,

But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims:
Such harmony is in immortal souls;

But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."

It is worthy of reflection that wherever a holy subject is touched by Shakspeare it is with a deep sentiment of unaffected reverence. The parting thought I have of his genius is that not vainly were spent in the comparative loneliness of the Avon village those last silent years of him who could place on the tongue of his saintly Isabella

such fit and feeling words on the most sacred of all sacred themes:

"Alas!-alas!

Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once,
And He that might the vantage best have took
Found out the remedy. How would you be
If he, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? Oh, think on that;
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made."

LECTURE VI.

Milton.

Abundance of biographical materials Dr. Johnson's life. Milton among the great prose writers-Milton's conception of his calling as a poet-Poetry the highest aim of human intellect-Milton's youthful genius-Study of Hebrew poetry-Latin poem to his father-The rural home-Poetic genius improved by study-Visits to the London Theatres-Thoughtful culture of his powers-Allegro and Penseroso-Lycidas-Dr. Johnson's judgments on this poem Masque of Comus-Faith and Hope and Chastity — The Hymn on the Nativity-Power and Melody of the Miltonic versification-Visit to Galileo-Milton in Rome-Story of Tasso's lifeInfluence over Milton-The Rebellion-The condition of the English monarchy-The poet's domestic troubles-Sonnets-Johnson's criticisms on them-Milton's Latin despatches-Sonnet on the Piedmont persecution - Coleridge and Wordsworth on the moral sublimity of the poet's life-The Paradise Lost-The character of Satan Coleridge's criticism - The grandeur of the epic - The Paradise Regained - The Samson Agonistes - Poetry a relief to the poet's overcharged heart.

THE birth of Milton, in the year 1608, dates about eight years before the death of Shakspeare, thus preserving the tie of time between the three most glorious of England's poets,-Edmund Spenser, William Shakspeare, and John Milton. In the last lecture I had occasion to remark on the well-known dearth of personal information respecting our great dramatic poet. As to our great epic poet, the contrast in this particular is as strik

ing as possible. Of Shakspeare we know almost nothing; of Milton we know almost every thing. The entire collection of his poems, the equally complete collection of his prose works, his official writings, his private correspondence, the incidental mention by his contemporaries, his autobiographical notices, all are preserved. Stimulated by this abundance of biographical materials, and also by the consideration that Milton's character was illustrative of great principles in various departments of human thought, an unparalleled number of biographersfrom his own nephew down to not a few authors within the last few years-have made his memoir their chosen theme. More biographies have been written of him than, perhaps, of any man who ever lived. I have had the curiosity to enumerate them, and could mention no fewer than twenty-five. Of all these, unhappily, the one most read is the one most uncongenial and, in many points, injurious,-that by Dr. Johnson. With every variety of opinion-poetical, political, moral, and theological, are these biographies tinctured. They have issued from the pens of poets, of antiquaries, of divines, of scholars, of painters, from Churchmen and Dissenters, from infidels, from the high-toned aristocrat, the Whig, and the Chartist.

Milton is a vast and varied theme. He may be viewed in his chief glory as a poet. Again, so eventful was his life, that a worthy subject of study is his character as a man. And if, in the endeavour to promote the cause of English literature, I should ever be led to enter upon the series of great prose writers in our language, high among them, along with Bacon and Clarendon, Hooker and Jeremy Taylor and Burke, as among the poets, would be