e of rhyme. We find other
passages in continued rhyme, where solemnity and theatrical pomp were
suitable, as, for instance, in the mask,[30] as it is called, in _The
Tempest_ and in the play introduced in _Hamlet_. Of other pieces, for
instance, the _Midsummer Night's Dream_, and _Romeo and Juliet_, the
rhymes form a considerable part; either because he may have wished to
give them a glowing color, or because the characters appropriately
utter in a more musical tone their complaints or suits of love. In
these cases he has even introduced rhymed strophes, which approach to
the form of the sonnet, then usual in England. The assertion of
Malone, that Shakespeare in his youth was fond of rhyme, but that he
afterward rejected it, is sufficiently refuted by his own chronology
of the poet's works. In some of the earliest, for instance in the
second and third part of _Henry the Sixth_, there are hardly any
rhymes; in what is stated to be his last piece, _Twelfth Night, or
What You Will_, and in _Macbeth_, which is proved to have been
composed under the reign of King James, we find them in no
inconsiderable number. Even in the secondary matters of form
Shakespeare was not guided by humor and accident, but, like a genuine
artist, acted invariably on good and solid grounds. This we might also
show of the kinds of verse which he least frequently used (for
instance, of the rhyming verses of seven and eight syllables), were we
not afraid of dwelling too long on merely technical peculiarities.

In England the manner of handling rhyming verse, and the opinion as to
its harmony and elegance, have, in the course of two centuries,
undergone a much greater change than is the case with the rhymeless
iambic or blank verse. In the former, Dryden and Pope have become
models; these writers have communicated the utmost smoothness to
rhyme, but they have also tied it down to a harmonious uniformity. A
foreigner, to whom antiquated and new are the same, may perhaps feel
with greater freedom the advantages of the more ancient manner.
Certain it is, the rhyme of the present day, from the too great
confinement of the couplet, is unfit for the drama. We must not
estimate the rhyme of Shakespeare by the mode of subsequent times, but
by a comparison with his contemporaries or with Spenser. The
comparison will, without doubt, turn out to his advantage. Spenser is
often diffuse; Shakespeare, though sometimes hard, is always brief and
vigorous. He has mor