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according to this amusing incident, appears as a jackdaw dressed out in peacock's feathers. The Swan of Avon was silent, and probably thought in his divine mind " I am neither daw nor pea- cock ! " and rocked himself carelessly in the blue waves of poetry, oft smiling at the stars, those golden thoughts of heaven. Count Alfred de Vigny must also be mentioned here. This writer, quite familiar with the English idiom, studied Shakespeare most thoroughly, trans- lated with great cleverness several of his dramas, and this study exercised a most favourable influ- ence on his own works. Owing to the ready ear and keen perception of art, which it must be admitted de Vigny possessed, we may assume that he heard and saw more deeply into the spirit of Shakespeare than most of his compatriots. But the talenfc of this man, like all his manner of thought and feeling, is in the dainty, delicate, and miniature-like, and his works are chiefly valuable for their elaborate finish. Therefore I can well imagine that he often stood stupefied before those stupendous beauties which Shakespeare had hewed, as it were, from the most tremendous granite blocks of poetry. . . . He certainly gazed at them with anxious admiration, like a goldsmith who in Flor- ence stares at the colossal gates of the Baptistery which, though made at one cast of bronze, are