Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 2 of 2] / Including the Biography of the Poet; criticisms on his genius and writings; a new chronology of his plays; a disquisition on the on the object of his sonnets; and a history of the manners, customs, and amusements, superstitions, poetry, and elegant literature of his age

by Nathan Drake

Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood."

———

"Or, as the snail, whose tender horns being hit,

Shrinks backward in his shelly cave with pain."

———

"As when the wind, imprison'd in the ground,

Struggling for passage, earth's foundation shakes."

We shall close these extracts from the Venus and Adonis, with two passages which form a striking contrast, and which prove that

the author possessed, at the commencement of his career, no small portion of those powers which were afterwards to astonish the world; powers alike unrivalled either in developing the terrible or the beautiful.

"And therefore hath she bribed the Destinies,