heir
orders as early as possible.

"Carefully compiled from our earliest records, and purporting to
be a literal translation of the writings of the old Chroniclers,
miracles, visions, &c., from the time of Gildas; richly
illustrated with notes, which throw a clear, and in many
instances a new light on what would otherwise be difficult and
obscure passages."--Thomas Miller, _History of the
Anglo-Saxons_, p. 88.

Works by the same Author.

BERTHA; or, The POPE and the EMPEROR.

THE LAST DAYS OF O'CONNELL.

A TRUE HISTORY OF THE HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION.

THE LIFE OF ST. ETHELBERT, KING of the EAST ANGLES.

A GRANDFATHER'S STORY-BOOK; or, TALES and LEGENDS, by a POOR SCHOLAR.

* * * * *{95}

_LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1854._

* * * * *

Notes.

DRYDEN ON SHAKSPERE.

"_Dryden may be properly considered as the father of English criticism,
as the writer who first taught us to determine upon principles the merit
of composition._"--Samuel JOHNSON.

No one of the early prose testimonies to the genius of Shakspere has
been more admired than that which bears the signature of John Dryden. I
must transcribe it, accessible as it is elsewhere, for the sake of its
juxtaposition with a less-known metrical specimen of the same nature.

"He [Shakspere] was the man who of all modern, and perhaps
ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All
the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them
not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you
more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have
wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was
naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read
nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he
is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to
compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat,
insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious
swelling into bombast. But he is always great when some great
occasion is presented to him: no man can say he ever had a fit
subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high
above the rest of poets,

_'Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi.'_"

John DRYDEN, _Of dramatick poesie, an essay_.
London, 1668. 4to. p. 47.

The metri