You Dryades, and lightfoot Satyri,
You gracious fairies, which at even-tide
Your closets leave, with heavenly beauty stor'd,
And on your shoulders spread your golden locks;
You savage bears, in caves and darken'd dens,
Come wail with me the martial Locrine's death;

Come mourn with me for beauteous Estrild's death!

Ah! loving parents, little do you know

What sorrow Sabren suffers for your thrall."

Can we then believe that 'Locrine' was the earliest work of Shakspere, as Tieck would believe or are we to think with Schlegel that it belongs to the same class, and the same hand, as Titus Andronicus? We doubt much whether it is the work of a very young man at all. It is wrought up to the author's conception of a dramatic poem ; it has no inequalities; its gross defects were intended to be beauties. It was written unquestionably by one who had received a scholastic training, and who saw the whole world of poetry in the remembrance of what he had read; he looked not upon the heart of men; he looked not even upon the commonest features of external nature. Did Shakspere work thus in the poems that we know he produced when a young man? Assuredly not. If his training had been scholastic, his good sense would have taught him to see something in poetry besides the echo of his scholarship. Nor can 'Locrine' be compared with Titus Andronicus. The faults of that play are produced by the uncontrolled energy which, straining for effect in action and passion, destroys even its own strength through the absence of calmness and repose. Even Shakspere could not at first perceive the universal truth which is contained in his own particular direction to the players :-"In the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness."

We have already apprised our readers that the opinions we entertain with regard to the authorship of 'Locrine' are directly opposed to those of Tieck, who has translated the play. The passages we have selected are, we think, fair examples of the average character of the poetry; but Tieck has pointed out one passage which he considers demonstrative of the hand of Shakspere. He supposes that 'Locrine' was enlarged and improved by our poet previous to the edition of 1595; and he says-" In this new edition are doubtless added many verses adapted to the circumstances of the time; but particularly the beautiful rhymed stanzas in the fourth act, which so distinctly remind us of his Sonnets and the Venus and Adonis, that these alone would prove the genuineness of the drama." We subjoin the stanzas :

"Enter Soldiers, leading in ESTRILD.

Est. What prince soe'er, adorn'd with golden crown,
Doth sway the regal sceptre in his hand,

And thinks no chance can ever throw him down,

Or that his state shall everlasting stand,

Let him behold poor Estrild in this plight.
The perfect platform of a troubled wight

Once was I guarded with Mavortial bands,
Compass'd with princes of the noble blood;
Now am I fallen into my foemen's hands,
And with my death must pacify their mood.
O life, the harbour of calamities !

O death, the haven of all miseries!

I could compare my sorrows to thy woe,

Thou wretched queen of wretched Pergamus

SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE.

PART I