At length has come the Spring! welcome to me Art thou, oh! wind, that journeyest to the sea!— The south-west wind, whose warm, health-bringing plume, Wafts odor from a wilderness of bloom; From groves that bend with blossoms, from broad plains Clothed in rich garments of a thousand stains— Blue, crimson, gold, green, azure, purple flowers, Given in profusion by the beauteous showers. I have heard stories of thy place of birth,— Oh! wind, that sheddest beauty on the earth!— Which make me sad, to think my life must glide Slowly and coldly by the Atlantic’s side. Thine are the “happy valleys” of our land, Shut in by mountains, and the South-sea strand; They never feel the tyranny of frost; Nor hail, nor snow is on their green laps tost; For nursed by thee successive verdures spring, And melts the sceptre of the Winter-king! * * * * * SHAKSPEARE. BY THEODORE S. FAY, AUTHOR OF “NORMAN LESLIE,” “THE COUNTESS IDA,” ETC. In the Edinburgh Review for July, 1840, there is an article entitled “Recent Shakspearian Literature,” very interesting to the students of the poet. It purports to be a review of about fourteen works from _Tieck’s Dramaturgische Blätter_, published in Breslau, 1826, to _De Quincey’s Life of Shakspeare_, in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 1840. As is generally the case with similar papers in this class of the quarterlies, the article is less a _review_ of the works enumerated in the rubric than a pouring forth of the opulence of the reviewer’s own mind, on the occasion of a brief allusion to the productions criticized. The author of it, in his estimate of Shakspeare, approaches nearer the views which posterity will probably entertain of the poet, than those which have till now characterized even the most rapturous of his admirers. The mightiest bard, not only of modern times, but by far the mightiest bard that has appeared among uninspired mortals, here begins to assume a yet higher apotheosised splendor; and, if not to rank among the constellations and the gods, like the half fabulous immortalities of the ancient world, at least to take his place in the history of mankind, as the mind which has reached the point farthest removed from brute matter.