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    sensitive and high-admiring feeling which characterises true genius , they have never touched some of the tales of Boccaccio which are so fine and so sufficiently worked out , as not to need any addition to the plot , or any further illustration of the sublime

    human characters . We avoid mentioning which these are , lest some of the vulgar drama-builders of the time should fillip our ears " with a three-man beetle , " and the eyes of the town with their great red-lettered playbills of Boccaccio at half-price ! The foregoing- extracts combine all Chateaubriand ' s criticisms on Chaucer .

    " The poetry of Spenser is remarkable for brilliant imagination , fertile invention , and flowing rhythm ; yet with all these recommendations it is cold and tedious . " * *

    " Spenser is the author of a sort of Essay on the manners and antiquities of Ireland , which I prefer to his ' Faerie Queen / "—Vol . i , p . 226 , 227 '* And this is all he can find to say of Spenser . We consequently pass on to the next .

    ' The dramatic authors contemporary with Shakspeare , " pursues our critic , " were Robert Greene , Hey wood , Decker , Rowley , Peele , Chapman , Ben Jonson , Beaumont and Fletcher : jacet oratio ! Ben Jonson ' s plays , entitled the Fox , and the Alchymist , are still esteemed . " —Vol . i , p . 229 .

    This is all that is said of the old English Dramatists ! Webster , Marlow , Massinger , Ford , and others , are not even named . The extract shows on the very face of it that he knows nothing at all about them , and probably never read a dozen lines of their works . It would not much surprise us if he had never even seen a single copy of any one of them . But Shakspeare he has read ; and to some purpose , as we shall find . We commence with his opinion of Shakspcare ' s women : —

    " All Shakspoare ' s young female characters aro formed on one model . They are all mere girls , and , setting" apart the shades of difference between the characters of daughter , lover , and wife , they all resemble each other as closely as twin-sisters ; nay , have the same smile , the same look , the same tone of voice . If we could forget their names , and close our eyes , we should not know which of them was speaking—their language is more elegiac than dramatic . These charming sketches are like ; the outlines traced by Raphael , when a figure of celestial beauty suggested itself to his genius : but Raphael converted the sketch into a picture , whilst Shakspeare contented himself with his first unfinished pencilling ^ , and did not always take time to paint . "—Vol . i . p . 280 .

    By way of proving the above absurd position b y instances , and being * consistent lit the same time , be says , — " Bring together Lady Macbeth , Queen Margaret , Ophelia * , Miranda , Cordelia , Jessica , JPerdita , Imogen , and the versatility of the poet ' s genius must excite our wonder . There is a charming ideality in Shakspeare ' s youthful female characters . "—p . 273 ,

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    Sketches of English Literature . 491

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    2 U 2

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1836, page 591, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2662/page/3/