Hamlet
. Take a few:—
"Friendship, mysterious cement of the soul,
Sweetener of life, and solder of society."
"Son of the morning, whither art thou gone?
Where hast thou hid thy many-spangled head,
And the majestic menace of thine eyes
Felt from afar?"
"Sorry pre-eminence of high descent!
Above the vulgar, born to rot in state."
Hence, by the way, Byron's famous lines,—
"It seem'd the mockery of hell to fold
The rottenness of eighty years in gold."
The exquisite description of beauty in the grave has been already quoted. That of the strong man dying is quite Shakspearian, and equally so is the picture commencing, "Death's shafts fly quick," particularly the passage about the sexton. How much he has compressed in the few words of the celebrated description!—
"The wind is up; hark! how it howls! methinks
Till now I never heard a sound so dreary;
Doors creak, and windows clap, and night's foul bird,
Rook'd in the spire, screams loud."
Who Blair's favourite authors were, we are not informed, but internal evidence proves him to have frequently and profitably read Shakspeare; and in terseness of description, comprehensiveness of vision, careless grandeur of execution, and short felicitous strokes of genius, he bears to him a considerable resemblance.
Blair's originality is proved by the fact, that many poets since have been either indebted to or inspired by his manly, noble verse. A great original, although he seldom steals himself, is the innocent cause of much theft in others, and his writings tempt, like the unbolted gate of a bank, to plunder. Young, although a truly gifted man, has kindled his night-lamp again and again at the phosphoric flame of
The Grave