The Arkansas advocate., 1834-10-10

true to nature they are, and the immense
 and close acquaintance which he possessed
 with the heart of man. II IS not so will
 Byron. With few exceptions, his char
 acters are the embodying of single pas
 sion to the exclusion of all the rest, anc therefore they are unnatural and impossible We agree that they are splendid and mag h,: .s,e :.!se agree .hst they ase ideal, and such as never existed.
 We must conclude, therefore. that in re- spect to character, that great proof of pow CT, Shakespeare is far. very far, above Byron; and vet we must conclude that some of his characters are well worthy of his great superior, and show q power, and q grasp of intellect inferior to his alone. Nor can be reproached with injustice to the genius of Byron, for Shakespeare is as far beyond every poet of antiquity. as he IS before the author of Childe Harold. Earth never yet saw such d deiineator of character, and probably never will again. Let ns pass therefore, to the second part Of ihis subject which is, the comparative Fancy and Imag- nation of these two poets.
 dL ltdSls DJiOH tS liOl illiSitUl tO his mighty rlval He scars to the most daring flights of sublimity, and his eye Is never dazzled and his wing never flags. He plays with the blue lightEings, and the heavy mane of the sea-he enters into the fire and smoke of he battle--he cries to the falling avalanche, and the laundering cataract-he stands amid the clouds and utters his voice to the thunders as they re- echo from the crags and peaks of the moun- tans. lie careers over the ocean in his gallant ship, and the waves are not more mighty than his words. And then again he uters the mild tones of a love for nature and nature's beauty-even with the grass hopper, he hath fellowship, and his song becomes as tender as before ii was sublime. He goes into the heart and paints its tre- mendous passions with vividness and force unequalled. He utters the most daring thoughts clad in the most daring im- agery. There is nothing in Shakespeare finer than his soliloquy on the Alps,-his address to the Ocean, his opening in the Corsair-his shipwreck in Don Juan-than the whole of Manfred. These are all full of the most exalted subiimty, and show strength of thought and a flow of fancy inferior to that of no poet. IL would not be consonant with the purpose, nor within the scope of this essay, for me to attempt quotations from either of these poets. The whole of Chlde Harold is constant sne- cession of daring sublimity and beautiful pathos-and ta quote any one verse, would be only to tear single gem from vast collection, all of them of surpasslng value. Having said this much of Byron, we turn again to Shakespeare. Ne are not to ex- peet Tn his works any continued strains of subiin1ity or pathos.-He was writing In the character of thousand individuals, and to his characters he adapted his language. But if we find him capable of rising with ease to the very highest flight, and of rot ing even in the hottest beams of the sun although he should not be found to remain there continually as Byron does, still we cannot conclude that his wing is weaker, or his flight less daring. Whenever Shaks- peare chooses, he scars at once into the sky one stroke of his strong wing, and he IS almost beyond our ken, far away in the blue heaven. He Is always equal to himself. The most terrific flights of imag- inatlon are familiar to him--ihe passions and the elements are his playthings. have here no more space than that which may suffice to refer you to Clarence's dream, in Richard the Third-to some of the solIloquies of Macbeth and to count less passages in Lear, Hamlet and OthelIo For tancliul imagination and beauty take the Midsummer Nights Dream, the Tem- pest, and Romeo and Juliet-take inc characters of his fairies and ministering spirits Titania, Oberon, Ariel and the host of their kindred inventions. Shakespeare seems to know the great power which he has over the feelings of his readers-he hnrries them hlther and thither as in sport --at one moment through the whirlwind of passion, and al another through the quiet calmness of affection, at this moment we are thrilling at the wild sublimity of mad ness, and the next, laughing at inc quaint folly of the clown.-He has the complete mastery over us, and we smile or weep at his command. So far, therefore, as fancy and imagination are concerned, we cannot pretend to decide upon the respective pow CTS of these two men. We know not which is the greater, and it were presump- ton to attempt to decide.
 Ne pass, therefore, to their language and versiiication. For the melody of his yerse-the strength and grandeur of his diction--and the happy fitness of his rhymes, Byron has never been surpassed. But 1t is not in this kind of versifcation that we can compare these two men. We must do i;, in reference to their blank verse
 Il IL. IL