As tradition does not furnish us with any instance of the development of precocious intellect in Shakespeare's youth, the dawn of his genius must have first manifested itself during his sojournment in the capital; so it is evident that when there, he must have devoted himself assiduously to various reading, as well as to universal observation of mankind; for all his historical plays, and many of the others, prove extensive reading, and particularly of the passing events of preceding generations in his own country. The religious extracts, which form a material part of this work, shew with what advantage he had perused the Holy Scriptures.

Every thing relative to his mental acquirements tends to illustrate a mind signally gifted, pursuing a system of self-formation, based on the highest fecundity of genius. It may be presumed that he derived some stimulus towards self-education from the taunts of his companion, Ben Jonson; who evidently prided himself upon his scholarship (he being proficient in Greek and Latin), and probably throwing out, at times, hints that he (Shakespeare) had not received so classical an education as himself—Jonson having observed of him, that he possessed "small Latin and less Greek.”

Feelings of mortification, perhaps, generated by reflections like the above (and sensitively alive to the necessity which he felt, that he must pursue his dramatic labours for his maintenance, while his genius. elevated his mind above the cares of livelihood), seem to be pourtrayed in the following lines of one of his poems :

O, for my sake, do thou with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide,

Than public means, which public manners breeds :
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand;
And almost thence my nature is subdu'd,
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:
Pity me then, and wish I were renew'd;
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eysell, 'gainst my strong infection:
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction.

SONNET cxi.

These lines were probably written under a depression of spirits, naturally arising from vexation, at the necessity which he laboured under, of being compelled (in accordance with the times) to adopt many sentiments, and expressions, solely to "please the ears of the groundlings," and also from the difficulties and

odium which the members of the drama at that period had to undergo, from the opposition which was then made by the Papists, and Puritans, to dramatic representations; and the establishment of playhouses. Even the Corporation of the City of London was strongly opposed to the erection of a theatre at Blackfriars, in which Shakespeare had a great interest. Such vexatious oppositions must have mortified his soaring spirit, propelled by

The force of heaven-bred poesy.

Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA, iii. 2.

That he felt the advantages of study as well as its pleasures, is exemplified in the advice given to Lucentio upon the subject of study.

This virtue, and this moral discipline,

Let's be no stoics, nor no stocks, I pray;

Or so devote to Aristotle's ethics,

As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured.
Talk logic with acquaintance that you have,—

And practise rhetoric in your common talk,-
Music and poesy, use to quicken you ;—
The mathematics and the metaphysics,

Fall to them, as you find your stomach serves you :
No profit grows, where is no pleasure ta'en :-

In brief, Sir, study what you most affect.

TAMING OF THE SHREW, i. 1.

In the foregoing lines his attachment to the higher branches of philosophy are most manifest, but although his mental powers were capable of embracing every thing within the span of human intellect, it is clear he felt that his early education, and his station in life, had not led him into the school of Aristotle, but that the decree of Providence had placed him upon Mount Parnassus, and had wedded him to the Muses.

However, we cannot omit to notice the incidents wherein we find him philosophizing, viz. —when, during a violent storm, he says :

:

Then again, his observation of the distinct locality

of the polar star-of which he says,—

I am constant as the Northern Star,

Of whose true, fixed, and resting quality,

There is no fellow in the firmament:

The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks,—

They are all fire-and every one doth shine—
But there's but one, in all, doth hold his place!

Here is a manifestation of his

JULIUS CÆSAR, iii. 1.

knowledge of the

stars, through the

changes in the positions of the effect of the rotation of the earth. But what shall we say, how shall we express our surprise and admiration at his distinctly defining the principle of gravitation, long before Sir Isaac Newton was born, -to whom the merit of the discovery has been so honourably attributed, from his enlarged and scientific explanations of its operating effects, acting throughout the whole system of the Universe? As it applies to our Earth it is thus defined by Shakespeare:

Time, force, and death,

Do to this body what extremes they can;

But the strong base, and building of my love,
Is, as the very centre of the earth,

Drawing all things to it.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, iv. 2.

Here is an instance of intellectual supremacy, that at least approaches to inspiration: and it would indeed be "gilding refined gold," to adduce any additional instance to illustrate his gifted intellect, for we may justly say that he possessed a mind