not have written such utter trash. The case of Chatterton was altogether a different one. There, indeed, was high genius wrongfully employed; but the enthusiastic admiration of the thing produced might well shut the eyes of the most acute to the inconsistencies which surrounded it. Not so with the new treasures which William Henry Ireland discovered from the pen of Shakspere. The people, however, settled the question. The play was brought out at Drury Lane: and the prologue by Sir James Bland Burgess is another instance of the mode in which the poetasters and witlings venerated Shak

spere:

"From deep oblivion snatch'd, this play ap

pears:

It claims respect, since Shakspeare's name it

bears;

That name, the source of wonder and delight,
To a fair hearing has at least a right.
We ask no more. With you the judgment

lies:

At the beginning of the nineteenth century
a new school of criticism began to establish it-
self amongst us. CHARLES LAMB and WILLIAM
HAZLITT led the way in approaching Shak-
spere, if not wholly in the spirit of Esthetics,
yet with love, with deep knowledge, with
surpassing acuteness, with unshackled minds.
A new era of critical
But a greater arose.
opinion upon Shakspere, as propounded by
Englishmen, may be dated from the delivery
of the lectures of SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE,
What
at the Surrey Institution, in 1814.
that great man did for Shakspere during the
remainder of his valuable life can scarcely be
appreciated by the public. For his opinions
were not given to the world in formal trea-
tises and ponderous volumes. They were
fragmentary; they were scattered, as it were,
at random; many of them were the oral
lessons of that wisdom and knowledge which
he poured out to a few admiring disciples.
For our-
But they have had their effect.
selves, personally, we owe a debt of gratitude
to that illustrious man that can never be

No forgeries escape your piercing eyes!
Unbiass'd, then, pronounce your dread de- repaid. If in any degree we have been en-

cree,

Alike from prejudice or favour free.

If, the fierce ordeal pass'd, you chance to
find

Rich sterling ore, though rude and unrefin'd,
Stamp it your own, assert your poet's fame,
And add fresh wreaths to Shakspeare's ho-
nour'd name."

The people did pronounce their "dread
decree." When Mr. Kemble uttered the
line-

"And when this solemn mockery is o'er "—
"the most discordant howl echoed from the
pit that ever assailed the organs of hearing."
Shakspere was vindicated.

abled to present Shakspere to the popular mind under new aspects, looking at him from a central point, which should permit us, however imperfectly, to comprehend something of his wondrous SYSTEM, we owe the desire so to understand him ourselves to the germs of thought which are scattered through the works of that philosopher; to whom the homage of future times will abundantly compensate for the partial neglect of his contemporaries. We desire to conclude this outline of the opinions of others upon the works of Shakspere, in connection with the imperfect expression of our own sense of those opinions, with the name of COLERIDGE.

THE END.

G. Woodfall and Son, Printers, Angel Court, Skinner Street.

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