Clothed in radiant armour, and authorized by titles sure and manifold, as a poet, Shakspeare came forward to demand the throne of fame, as the dramatic poet of England. His excellencies compelled even his contemporaries to seat him on that throne, although there were giants in those days contending for the same honor. Hereafter I would fain endeavour to make out the title of the English drama as created by, and existing in, Shakspeare, and its right to the supremacy of dramatic excellence in general. But he had shown himself a poet, previously to his appearance as a dramatic poet; and had no Lear, no Othello, no Henry IV., no Twelfth Night ever appeared, we must have admitted that Shakspeare possessed the chief, if not every, requisite of a poet,--deep feeling and exquisite sense of beauty, both as exhibited to the eye in the combinations of form, and to the ear in sweet and appropriate melody; that these feelings were under the command of his own will; that in his very first productions he projected his mind out of his own particular being, and felt, and made others feel, on subjects no way connected with himself, except by force of contemplation and that sublime faculty by which a great mind becomes that, on which it meditates. To this must be added that affectionate love of nature and natural objects, without which no man could have observed so steadily, or painted so truly and passionately, the very minutest beauties of the external world:-- When them hast on foot the purblind hare, Mark the poor wretch; to overshoot his troubles, How he outruns the wind, and with what care, He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles; The many musits through the which he goes Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes. Sometimes he runs among the flock of sheep, To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell; And sometime where earth-delving conies keep, To stop the loud pursuers in their yell; And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer: Danger deviseth shifts, wit waits on fear. For there his smell with others' being mingled, The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt, Ceasing their clamorous cry, till they have singled, With much ado, the cold fault cleanly out, Then do they spend their mouths; echo replies, As if another chase were in the skies. By this poor Wat far off, upon a hill, Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear, To hearken if his foes pursue him still: Anon their loud alarums he doth hear, And now his grief may be compared well To one sore-sick, that hears the passing bell. Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch Turn, and return, indenting with the way: Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch. Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay. For misery is trodden on by many, And being low, never relieved by any. 'Venus and Adonis'. And the preceding description:--