We have been looking to Shakspeare's imagery. You will meet with classical images in the 'The Two Noble Kinsmen.' Do not allow any ill-applied notion of his want of learning to convert this into an argument against his authorship. You will recollect, that an attachment of this sort is very perceptible in Shakspeare's dramas, and pervades the whole thread of his youthful poems. It is indeed a prominent quality in the school of poetry, which prevailed during the earlier part of his life, perhaps during the whole of it. In his early days, the study of [18:1]Grecian and Latin literature in England may be said to have only commenced, and the scenery and figures of the classical mythology broke on the view of the student with all the force of novelty. [Sidenote: Elizabethan literature tinged with classicism.] All the literature of that period is tinged with classicism to a degree which in our satiated times is apt to seem pedantic. It infected writers of all kinds and classes: translations were multiplied, and a familiarity with classical tales and history was sought after or affected even by those who had no access to the original language. Shakspeare clearly stood in this latter predicament, his knowledge of Latin certainly not exceeding that of a schoolboy: but the translated classics enabled him to acquire the facts, and he shared the taste of the age to its full extent. [Sidenote: Shakspere's classical allusions.] His admiration of the classical writers is vouched by the subjects and execution of his early poems, by numerous allusions in his dramas, particularly his histories, by the subjects chosen for some of his plays, by one or two imitations of the translated Latin poets,[19:1] and by many exotic forms in his language, derived from the same secondary source. Correct tameness is the usual character of classical allusion in authors well versed in classical studies. [Sidenote: Milton's classical allusions.] [Sidenote: Fletcher's.] Even Milton, who has drawn the most exquisite images of this kind, has sometimes remembered only, where he should have invented: and Fletcher, whom we have especially to consider, is no exception to the rule; his many classical illustrations are invariably cold and poor. [Sidenote: Shakspere's treatment of mythology.] Shakspeare's mythological images have something singular in them. They are incorrect as transcripts of the originals, but admirable if examined without such reference; they are highly-coloured paintings whose subjects are taken from the simplicity of some antique statue. [Sidenote: His _Venus and Adonis_.] The 'Venus and Adonis' has some fine and some overcharged pictures thus formed from the hints which he derived from his books.[19:2] He received the mythological images but imperfectly, and his fancy was stimulated without being [19:3]clogged. [Sidenote: Shakspere's treatment of classical mythology;] He stood but at the entrance of those visionary forests, within whose glades the heroes and