Such is the Life, and such are the Writings of SHAKSPEARE. My difficulty hath been to rescue certain particulars from beneath an immense range of materials which have been accumulated on the subject. How far the object has been effected, the intelligent and candid reader must determine. Industry I have employed; and the humble praise of diligence respecting the whole work, will not, I presume, be denied me. I could easily have extended this Memoir, but fear I have already trespassed. Socrates used to declare, that the statuary found his figure in the block of marble, and striking off the superfluous parts, the form gradually presented itself to view! Rejecting all extraneous matter in the present Biography, my aim hath been to exhibit a few of the more prominent traits, both of SHAKSPEARE and of his Writings, to the rising generation.

Nor by the youth of both sexes, be the momentous truth ever forgotten, that it is not Genius with its dazzling and overwhelming brilliancy, but VIRTUE emitting a mild and steady lustre throughout the humblest as well as the most elevated situations of Human Life, confers an unsullied and imperishable CROWN OF GLORY! This constitution of things the Supreme Being hath ordained for the amelioration and final happiness of mankind.

INTRODUCTION.

O YOUTHS and VIRGINS! O declining Eld!
O pale Misfortune's slaves! O ye who dwell
Unknown with humble quiet: Ye who wait
In Courts and fill the golden seat of Kings;
O sons of sport and pleasure! O thou wretch
That weep'st for jealous law, and the sore wound
Of conscious guilt, or Death's rapacious hand,
That left thee void of Hope! O ye who mourn
In exile! Ye who through the embattled field
Seek bright renown, or who for nobler palms
Contend the leaders of a public cause!
Hath not His faithful tongue

Told you the fashion of your own estate,
The secrets of your bosom!

AKENSIDE.

WITH respect to the works of SHAKSPEARE, the young reader of reflection may ask, what is it that renders them so universally pleasing? Wherein consists that charm that interests the affections, and overpowers the heart of almost every person who sits down to the perusal of them? There must be some reason for this fascination. There are causes to be assigned for this universal approbation.

B

It has been remarked, that SHAKSPEARE has excelled in the first and greatest characteristics of genius; the power of moving the passions, and enchaining the attention; the faculty of inventing and pourtraying characters; the beauty and energy of his style, diction, and imagery; and the power of numbers, as well as the facility and felicity of his versification. These are all of them deserving of attention.

To these exemplifications of the superiority of Shakspeare's writings above all others, may be added the sentiments and maxims of MORALITY with which they are impregnated. Hence a selection has been made at various times, and on different occasions, well adapted to engage the affections, and interest the heart.

I shall subjoin a character of SHAKSPEARE by the judicious Dr. Aikin, in his Letters to his

Son.

"By means of his nervous and highly figurative language, rather aided than injured in its effect by a turn to quaintness and bombast, SHAKSPEARE presents even trite sentiments and descriptions in so impressive a form, that they are seized with avidity by the imagination; and through it, act with irresistible force on the heart. But in addition to this, a fund of strong sense and sagacity suggested to him an uncom

mon variety of just and curious observations on mankind, which he has copiously introduced, sometimes with little dramatic propriety, but so as to furnish an almost inexhaustible store of moral precept and reflection. These choice products of his genius are culled by the English reader with scarcely any interruption from the gross matter, in which, like pure gold in its matrix, they are often imbeded! His detached beauties shine in all collections, and even regular systems of morality have been fabricated from his works alone. Considering the universal familiarity with SHAKSPEARE's best pieces acquired among us, either from the stage or in the closet, and the adoption of so much of his phraseology by many of our popular writers, I do not think it is exaggerating the effect of poetry to suppose that, the characteristic English manliness of thought has been greatly indebted to him for its preservation, amid prevailing luxury and fashionable frivolity."

A proper close of this eulogium on the genius of SHAKSPEARE will be a few remarks on the character of the melancholy, moralizing, and satirical JAQUES, whose representation of Human Life under SEVEN AGES, is illustrated in the following pages.

The character of JAQUES is altogether singu

lar, and of a very eccentric complexion. We meet with this personage in SHAKSPEARE'S AS YOU LIKE IT; (published, according to Malone, in 1600) there we thus find it delineated.

Lord. To-day, my Lord of Amiens, and myself,
Did steal behind him, as he lay along

Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood:
To the which place a poor sequester'd stag,
That from the hunters' aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish; and, indeed, my Lord,
The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans,
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting; and the big round tears
Cours'd one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase: and thus the hairy fool,
Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,

Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears.

Duke.

But what said JAQUES?

Did HE not moralize this spectacle?

Lord. O, yes! into a thousand similies.
First, for his weeping in the needless stream;
Poor deer, quoth he, thou mak'st a testament
As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more

To that which had too much: Then, being alone,
Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends;
'Tis right, quoth he; thus MISERY doth part
The flux of company: Anon a careless herd,

Full of the pasture, jumps along by him,'

And never stays to greet him; Ay, quoth JAQUES,
Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;

'Tis just the fashion: Wherefore do you look

Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?

According to this description," says Mr.

Richardson, "the most striking character in the