one to whom poetry and its artistic surroundings are the highest aim. Shakespeare's theme, or task, was not merely poetry, but also history. He could not model the subject-matter as he chose, he could not create events and characters at his caprice, and just as little as he could determine unity of time and place could he regulate that of interest for particular persons or deeds. And yet in these historical dramas poetry streams forth more powerfully, richly, and sweetly than in the tragedies of those writers who either invent or vary their own plots at will, who aim at the most perfect symmetry of form, and who in "art proper," especially in the enchainement des scènes, far surpass poor Shakespeare.
Yes—there we have it—the great Briton is not only a poet, but a historian; he wields not only the dagger of Melpomene, but the still sharper stylus of Clio.[1] In this respect he is like the earliest writers of history, who also knew no difference between poetry and history, and so gave us not merely a nomenclature of the things done, or a dusty herbarium of events, but who enlightened truth with song, and in whose song was heard only the voice of truth.[2] The so-
