Shakespeare
,Milton calls him “Sweetest Shakespeare, fancy’s child,” and says he will go to the well-trod stage to hear him “warble his native wood-notes wild.” (LʹAllegro, 133.)
Akenside says he is “Alike the master of our smiles and tears.” (Ode i.)
Dryden says of him—“He was a man who of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul.”
Pope says—
“Shakespeare (whom you and every play-house bill
Style “the divine,” “the matchless,” what you will)
For gain, not glory, winged his roving flight,
And grew immortal in his own despite.”
The dedication of Shakespeare’s Sonnets has provoked much controversy. It is as follows:—
To The Onlie Begetter Of
These Insuing Sonnets
Mr. W. H. All Happinesse
And That Eternitie
Promised
Our Ever-Living Poet
Wisheth
—that is, Mr. William Herbert [after-wards Lord Pembroke] wisheth to [the Earl of Southampton] the only begetter or instigator of these sonnets, that happiness and eternal life which [Shakespeare] the ever living poet speaks of. The rider is—
The Well-Wishing
Adventurer In
Setting
Forth. T. T.
That is, Thomas Thorpe is the adventurer who speculates in their publication. (See Athenæum, Jan. 25, 1862.)
Shakespeare. There are six accredited signatures of this poet, five of which are attached to business documents, and one is entered in a book called Floria, a translation of Montaigne, published in 1603. A passage in act ii. s. 2 of The Tempest is traced directly to this translation, proving that the Florio was possessed by Shakespeare before he wrote that play.
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The Shakespeare of divines. Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667).
The Shakespeare of eloquence. So Barnave happily characterised the Comte de Mirabeau (1749–1791).
The Spanish Shakespeare. Calderon (1601–1687).
