SHAKSPEARE.

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BY THEODORE S. FAY, AUTHOR OF “NORMAN LESLIE,” “THE COUNTESS IDA,” ETC.

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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.