assed on_,
In maiden meditation, fancy free.

SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS.--Before his time, the sonnet had been but little
used in England, the principal writers being Surrey, Sir Walter Raleigh,
Sidney, Daniel, and Drayton. Shakspeare left one hundred and fifty-four,
which exhibit rare poetical power, and which are most of them addressed to
a person unknown, perhaps an ideal personage, whose initials are W. H.
Although chiefly addressed to a man, they are of an amatory nature, and
dwell strongly upon human frailty, infidelity, and treachery, from which
he seems to have suffered: the mystery of these poems has never been
penetrated. They were printed in 1609. "Our language," says one of his
editors, "can boast no sonnets altogether worthy of being placed by the
side of Shakspeare's, except the few which Milton poured forth--so severe
and so majestic."

It need hardly be said that Shakspeare has been translated into all modern
languages, in whole or in part. In French, by Victor Hugo and Guizot, Leon
de Wailly and Alfred de Vigny; in German, by Wieland, A. W. Schlegel, and
Buerger; in Italian, by Leoni and Carcano, and in Portuguese by La Silva.
Goethe's Apprenticeship of Wilhelm Meister is a long and profound critique
of Hamlet; and to the Germans he is quite as familiar and intelligible as
to the English.

IRELAND: COLLIER.--The most celebrated forgery of Shakspeare was that by
Samuel Ireland, the son of a Shakspearean scholar, who was an engraver and
dealer in curiosities. He wrote two plays, called _Vortigern_ and _Henry
the Second_, which he said he had discovered; and he forged a deed with
Shakspeare's autograph. By these he imposed upon his father and many
others, but eventually confessed the forgery.

One word should be said concerning the Collier controversy. John Payne
Collier was a lawyer, born in 1789, and is known as the author of an
excellent history of _English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakspeare_
and _Annals of the Stage to the Restoration_. In the year 1849, he came
into possession of a copy of the folio edition of Shakspeare, published in
1632, _full of emendations_, by an early owner of the volume. In 1852 he
published these, and at once great enthusiasm was excited, for and against
the emendations: many thought them of great value, while others even went
so far as to accuse Mr. Collier of having made some of them himself. The
chief value of the work was that it led to new investigations, an