THE SOUL'S ERRAND. Go, soul, the body's guest, Fear not to touch the best, The truth shall be thy warrant ; And give the world the lie. Go, tell the court it glows Tell men of high condition And if they once reply, Tell them that brave it most, They beg for more by spending, Who in their greatest cost, Seek nothing but commending. And if they make reply, Then give them all the lie. Tell zeal it lacks devotion, Tell love it is but lust, Tell time it is but motion, Tell flesh it is but dust; And wish them not reply, And as they shall reply And when they do reply, Tell physic of her boldness, So give them still the lie. Tell justice of delay; And if they will reply, Then give them all the lie. Tell arts they have no soundness, But vary by esteeming, Tell schools they want profoundess, And stand too much on seeming; If arts and schools reply, Tell faith it's fled the city, Tell how the country erreth, Tell, manhood shakes off pity, Tell, virtue least preferreth; 23 And if they do reply, Spare not to give the lie. So when thou hast, as I Commanded thee, done babbling: Although to give the lie; Deserves no less than stabbing, Yet stab at thee who will, No stab the Soul can kill. WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, The art of poetry, the gay science, is a most subtle and most delightful sort of writing or composition. It is sweet and pleasurable to those who propound and to those who reply; to utterers and to hearers. This science, or the wisdom or knowledge dependent on it, can only be possessed, received, and acquired byt he inspired spirit of the Lord God; who communicates it, sends it, and influences by it, those alone, who well and wisely, and discreetly and correctly, can create and arrange, and compose and polish, and scan and measure feet, and pauses and rhymes, and syllables, and accents, by dexterous art, by varied and by novel arrangement of words. And even then, so sublime is the understanding of this art, and so different its attainment, that it can only be learned, possessed, reached, and known to the man who is of noble and of ready invention, elevated and pure discretion, sound and steady judgment; who has seen, and heard, and read many and divers books and writings; who understands all languages; who has, moreover, dwelt in the courts of kings and nobles; and who has witnessed and practised many heroic feats. Finally, he must be of high birth, courteous, calm, chivalric, gracious; he must be polite and graceful; he must possess honey, and sugar, and salt, and facility and gayety in his disALFONSO De Baena. course. We have reserved this passage, as the most appropriate illustration of the genius of Shakspeare,Shakspeare, whose august name we tremble to pronounce, but which cannot be omitted without leaving a chasm in the history of the English language and literature. He has had already, enough "loads of learning delived on his back" to crush an ordinary genius. There is no element of human genius but what has been ascribed to him, and each, and all in perfection. He surpassed all his predecessors and contemporaries in the knowledge of human character, and for truthfulness in his delineations, he ranks next to the Bible. "There is nothing wanting either to the fancy or the imagination of Shakspeare," and these are no more rich and felicitous, than his judgment is just, and his perception of the beautiful, delicate and true. "He is equal to the greatest poets in grandeur of imagination; to all in diversity of it; to all in fancy; to all in every thing else, except in a certain primeval intensity:" and it is his intensity more than any thing else that immortalized him. His deep feeling, his universal sympathy for humanity, more than his fancy, his imagination or his judgment, made him the teacher and the companion of all future time. Theorize as we may, the fact is indisputable, that by far the most beautiful specimens of the earliest po |