rent, and hold up many a neighboring plant, and, perhaps, worthless weed, to perpetuity. Such is the case with Shakespeare, whom we behold defying the encroachments of time, retaining in modern use the language and literature of his day, and giving duration to many an indifferent author, merely from having flourished in his vicinity. But even he, I grieve to say, is gradually assuming the tint of age, and his whole form is overrun by a profusion of commentators, who, like clambering vines and creepers, almost bury the noble plant that upholds them."

Here the little quarto began to heave his sides and chuckle, until at length he broke out in a plethoric fit of laughter that had wellnigh choked him, by reason of his excessive corpulency. "Mighty well!" cried he, as soon as he could recover breath; "mighty well! and so you would persuade me that the literature of an age is to be perpetuated by a vagabond deer-stealer! by a man without learning; by a poet, forsooth-a poet!" And here he wheezed forth another fit of laughter.

I confess that I felt somewhat nettled at this rudeness, which, however, I pardoned on account of his having flourished in a less polished age. I determined, nevertheless, not to give up my point.

ness.

"Yes," resumed I, positively, "a poet; for of all writers he has the best chance for immortality. Others may write from the head, but he writes from the heart, and the heart will always understand him. He is the faithful portrayer of nature, whose features are always the same, and always interesting. Prosewriters are voluminous and unwieldy; their pages are crowded with commonplaces, and their thoughts expanded into tediousBut with the true poet everything is terse, touching, or brilliant. He gives the choicest thoughts in the choicest language. He illustrates them by everything that he sees most striking in nature and art. He enriches them by pictures of human life, such as it is passing before him. His writings, therefore, contain the spirit, the aroma, if I may use the phrase, of the age in which he lives. They are caskets which enclose within a small compass the wealth of the language-its family jewels, which are thus transmitted in a portable form to posterity. The setting may occasionally be antiquated, and require now and then to be renewed, as in the case of Chaucer; but the

brilliancy and intrinsic value of the gems continue unaltered. Cast a look back over the long reach of literary history. What vast valleys of dulness, filled with monkish legends and academical controversies! what bogs of theological speculations! what dreary wastes of metaphysics! Here and there only do we behold the heaven-illuminated bards, elevated like beacons on their widely separate heights, to transmit the pure light of poetical intelligence from age to age."

I was just about to launch forth into eulogiums upon the poets of the day, when the sudden opening of the door caused me to turn my head. It was the verger, who came to inform me that it was time to close the library. I sought to have a parting word with the quarto, but the worthy little tome was silent; the clasps were closed; and it looked perfectly unconscious of all that had passed. I have been to the library two or three times since, and have endeavored to draw it into further conversation, but in vain; and whether all this rambling colloquy actually took place, or whether it was another of those odd day-dreams to which I am subject, I have never to this moment been able to discover.

Thorow earth and waters deepe,

The pen by skill doth passe;

And featly nyps the worldes abuse,
And shoes us in a glasse

The vertu and the vice

Of every wight alyve:

The honey-comb that bee doth make
Is not so sweet in hyve,

As are the golden leves

That drop from poet's head! Which doth surmount our commos talke

As farre as dross doth lead.

"Churchyard."

KEAN'S ACTING

BY

RICHARD HENRY DANA

RICHARD HENRY DANA

1787-1879

Richard Henry_Dana, whose career must not be confounded with that of his son, Richard Henry Dana, Junior, the author of "Two Years before the Mast," was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1787. He spent three years at Harvard, and was admitted to the bar in 1811. The law, however, had no attraction for him, and he soon devoted himself to literary pursuits. In 1814 he assisted in founding the "North American Review" in Boston, and in 1818 became one of its editors. During this period he contributed to that magazine a series of critical papers, notably one reviewing the entire field of English poetry down to Wordsworth, which gave proof of his fine culture and literary ability. He published two psychological novels, "Tom Thornton" and "Paul Felton," now seldom read, and a volume of poems likewise too metaphysical to gain permanent popularity.

His lectures on Shakespeare, which were well received and greatly admired, are perhaps his best and most successful literary effort. His admirable essay on Kean's Acting" shows his profound appreciation of Shakespeare, and gives an excellent idea of his literary acumen and artistic temperament. Few dramatic criticisms contain such subtle analyses of an actor's interpretation, few are more suggestive and instructive. In 1850 Dana published an edition of his collected works in two volumes. He seldom wrote for publication after this, and was but rarely seen in public, passing his summers at Manchester-by-the-Sea, and his winters at Boston. He died in 1879, at the advanced age of ninety-two.

Taken as a whole, Dana's work is somewhat disappointing, inasmuch as it failed in the fulfilment of the promises of his youth. His influence extended only to the limited circle of the cultured and refined. His literary style is classic and severe, perfectly polished, faultless in form, but somewhat cold and colorless. In his literary criticisms he is at his best. Here his style is admirably adapted to the subject, and his acute discernment and keen analytical powers find their proper field.

I

KEAN'S ACTING

HAD scarcely thought of the theatre for several years, when Kean arrived in this country; and it was more from curiosity than from any other motive, that I went to see, for the first time, the great actor of the age. I was soon lost to the recollection of being in a theatre, or looking upon a grand display of the "mimic art." The simplicity, earnestness, and sincerity of his acting made me forgetful of the fiction, and bore me away with the power of reality and truth. If this be acting, said I, as I returned home, I may as well make the theatre my school, and henceforward study nature at second hand.

How can I describe one who is nearly as versatile and almost as full of beauties as nature itself-who grows upon us the more we are acquainted with him, and makes us sensible that the first time we saw him in any part, however much he may have moved us, we had but a vague and poor apprehension of the many excellencies of his acting. We cease to consider it as a mere amusement: It is a great intellectual feast; and he who goes to it with a disposition and capacity to relish it will receive from it more nourishment for his mind than he would be likely to in many other ways in fourfold the time. Our faculties are opened and enlivened by it; our reflections and recollections are of an elevated kind; and the very voice which is sounding in our ears long after we have left him creates an inward harmony which is for our good.

Kean, in truth, stands very much in that relation to other players whom we have seen, that Shakespeare does to other dramatists. One player is called classical; another makes fine points here, and another there. Kean makes more fine points than all of them together; but in him these are only little prominences, showing their bright heads above a beautifully undulated surface. A constant change is going on in him, partaking of the nature of the varying scenes he is passing through,