truth and love. Whatever, from a literary and critical point of view, may be the accepted theory of their origin and character, whether autobiographical or allegorical, or partly each, their intrinsic poetic quality is lyrical and their governing spirit meditative. Written in the best years of his eventful life, we may confess, with Wordsworth, that in them Shakespeare "unlocked his heart" in a sense and with a freedom that is not discoverable elsewhere, and, in so far as he fails to admit us to the innermost meaning of his life and utterances, to that degree is the meditativeness of the verse increased.

It is that partial revelation which these sonnets give us of some kind of a moral struggle that Shakespeare was waging with himself, at times, with the deepest intensity, that adds to their interest and value, especially in the view of those who are seeking the causes of those varied personal experiences of which Shakespeare was the subject.

Passing from the sonnets to the plays, the most prominent lyrical features are naturally found in the songs which are interspersed throughout, partly for the sake of literary variety and interest, and partly because at the time the lyrical element in the form of a song was better adapted to the purpose of the poet than the mere objective form of the dramatic and narrative. At times, in the prologues and epilogues of the respective plays and in the choruses, this same idyllic feature is present and prominent.

As we examine these songs of the plays it is natural to note that, lyrical as they all are, they differ greatly in the particular phase of feeling or mood of mind that they express; some of them being of a light and almost frolicsome order, suited to the subject in hand, while others assume with equal fitness a graver tone and express a more serious view of life and character. Naturally, in the comedies we have the one and in the tragedies the other of these characteristics, while in the historical plays, as a somewhat mixed type of dramatic verse, we note the presence of each. A few examples will suffice. to reveal the fact which we are emphasizing, that even in the songs, where, least of all, we would expect to find it, this specifically meditative note is often struck by the great sonneteer and dramatist.

Thus, in Ariel's Song, in "The Tempest," the familiar lines:

Nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

Even the Song of the Clown, in "Twelfth Night," reveals this contemplative feature, as it

opens:

Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;

closing in similar strain:

Lay me, O, where

Sad true lover ne'er find my grave,

To weep there!

So, in "Measure for Measure," the Duke sings: Peace be with you!

He who the sword of heaven will bear

Should be as holy as severe;

Pattern in himself to know,
Grace to stand, and virtue go;
More nor less to others paying
Than by self-offences weighing.
O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!

How well this language agrees with that of the Prince of Morocco, in "The Merchant of Venice,” as he examines the golden casket which Portia hands him:

All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
. Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold.

In "As You Like It" we have in "Amiens's Song" a prominent instance of this Shakespearean mood:

I.

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind

As man's ingratitude;

Thy tooth is not so keen,

Because thou art not seen,

Although thy breath be rude.

II.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh

As benefits forgot:

Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp

As friend remembered not.

This song of Amiens is especially suggestive as

revealing that close connection of the grave and

the gay which we so often find in Shakespeare and the greatest authors, each of the stanzas closing with a refrain marked alike by sobriety and pleasantry. In the same play is the lyrical language of Celia, as she enters the forest, reading :

Why should this a desert be?
For it is unpeopled? No:
Tongues I'll hang on every tree,
That shall civil sayings show:
Some, how brief the life of man
Runs his erring pilgrimage,
That the stretching of a span
Buckles in his sum of age;
Some, of violated vows

'Twixt the souls of friend and friend.

What may be called the responsive song of Guiderius and Arviragus in "Cymbeline" is of this character, a kind of homily in lyric form on the vanity of all things earthly and the common end to which all alike are assigned by the presence of death in the world.

Thus the great bard sings and writes in thoughtful manner, conning over the mysterious human life which he knew so well how to portray in all its phases, passing rapidly from pleasantry to the profoundest introspection and sedateness of spirit, now touching lightly some transient phase of human character, and now impressing on us with all the weight of his immense personality some fundamental fact or truth.

Passing from sonnet and song alike, it may further be noted that even in the plays themselves, written

in blank verse and in obedience to the principles of dramatic art, there is a decided lyrical element, an essential emotiveness and passion, the real idyllic ardor, though not presented in lyric form. This feature is naturally most marked in those portions of the plays which are embodied in rhyme, and as such conform more closely to lyrical models. A single example must suffice.

In "Richard the Second" John of Gaunt is lying on his couch, and thus he meditates on the words of the dying, and how they must enforce attention and respect:

O, but they say the tongues of dying men

Enforce attention like deep harmony:

Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain,

For they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain.
He, that no more must say, is listened more

Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;
More are men's ends marked than their lives before.

This language is neither a sonnet nor a specific lyric in the form of a song, but the uniform iambic pentameter of the plays, written in rhyme, and yet so full of essential lyric quality on the reflective side that it reads as if it were lyric verse in structure, and has upon us all the effect of such an order of verse. The plays, and especially the tragedies, are full of such examples; and here, again, in such a rare combination of the lyric and dramatic is seen the genius of this marvelous man. Hence we are not surprised to read from Brandes of the "Midsummer Night's Dream" that "it is to be described