EDITOR'S TABLE.

JEFFREY AND GIFFORD versus SHAKSPEARE AND MILTON. An acute and comprehensive mind, an intelligence superior to prejudice, and an undeviating conscientious spirit of rectitude, are among the necessary endowments of true criticism. But how rare has been this combination, even in the examples of those who have been admitted to be the most distinguished critics of their time! Let the whole history of literature furnish the answer; while we direct the reader to an amusing commentary upon this general theme, which we find in the last number of FRAZER's Magazine, under the title of JEFFREY and GIFFORD versus SHAKSPEARE and MILTON.' We have often amused ourselves,' says the writer, by imagining how SHAKSPEARE and MILTON would have fared at the hands of these illustrious reviewers had the paramount pair of immortals and the two clever party writers been contemporaries. Let us follow out this curious speculation. To make our suppositions quite plain, we will imagine that the Edinburgh Review existed at the time of SHAKSPEARE; that the disgust which is expressed for the tribunes, or the opposition, and the ministerial contempt of the people, shown forth in Coriolanus,' were disagreeable to the Whig party of that day; that SHAKSPEARE'S high Tory principles; the admiration which he appears to have felt for kings and princes, and the favor in which he may be fairly supposed to have stood at court; were unpalatable to the Liberals of the day. In such case we may be pretty sure he would have been given over for critical dissection to Mr. JEFFREY, who would probably have chosen the Tempest' as the subject of his subacid jocularity. Let us now suppose that the Quarterly Review was established at the Restoration; that MILTON'S 'Paradise Lost' had just been published by any bookseller but the MURRAY of those days; that MILTON had been placed, a short time previous (as in fact he was) in the custody of the sergeant-at-arms; that his pamphlets for the liberty of the press, and against the prelates, had enraged the opponents of liberal principles and lovers of highchurch politics; and it is easy to conclude that these persons would have infallibly consigned him to the secular arm of Mr. GIFFORD. Both of the worthy gentlemen we have named would, no doubt, have performed their functions to the entire satisfaction of their respective parties; Mr. JEFFREY with the lightness and liveliness which distinguish all he writes; Mr. GIFFORD with his usual strength and acuteness, mingled with his customary allusions to the personal history of the author whom he is reviewing. But the malice prepense - the intention to murder-would be equally appparent in both cases, though each would have his peculiar method of destroying.' The former editor of the Quarterly would be, like Tristan l'Hermite,' flinging his coarse and scurrilous jests upon the unfortunate person about whose neck he was fastening the rope, while his northern rival would rather resemble those eastern mutes who despatch you, with every appearance of respect for your person, with a silken cord.

With this preamble, Mr. JEFFREY is introduced to the reader, in a critique upon 'The Tempest, by WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE: 4to. London: 1612.' After the dissertation upon matters and things in general' with which it is customary to open the labored papers of quarterly journals, the reviewer reaches at length the work which he is to criticise, and upon which he pounces in manner following, to wit:'

THE present play forms a sort of connecting link between the ancient mysteries and the modern drama, and, disregarding equally with these venerable monstrosities all rules of probability and taste, merely changes the abstractions into persons as shadowy, and their miracles into marvels altogether as amazing and edifying. In other respects, we are rather inclined to think that Mr. SHAKSPEARE has outdone the native absurdity of the originals.

The play opens with a conversation among some sailors in a ship sinking at sea, which is quite in the taste of these refined persons; others come in wet, which is at least as new on the stage as a ship foundering; then a confused noise is heard within:

We split! we split' farewell my wife and children!
Brother, farewell! we split! we split! we split!'

"The author has here most happily expressed confusion, by not indicating to whom these separate speeches are to be given.

The next scene is on an enchanted island, where a young lady called Miranda is entreating her father, Prospero, to allay the storm, of which she gives this splendid description:

The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,
Dashes the fire out'

Prospero replies:

Be collected;

No more amazement: tell your piteous heart
There's no harm done.'

To this consolatory piece of intelligence Miranda most singularly answers, O wo the day!' and Prospero rejoins, 'No harm; wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort.' From all which it would appear that Miranda was crying because nobody had been drowned. Prospero then bids her 'obey, and be attentive.' He relates that, just twelve years before, he was the Duke of Milan, but that his brother had usurped his dignity; and that himself and his daughter, having been puí into a rotten carcass of a boat,' arrived safely at the island. But this interesting story is by no means so briefly told in the play, and is, moreover, perpetually interrupted in its course, after this fashion:

'PROSPERO. My brother, and thy uncle, called Antonio;

I pray thee mark me-thy false uncle

Dost thou attend me?

MIRANDA. Sir, most heedfully.

PROS. Thou attend'st not.

But, all this having nothing to do with the storm, Miranda very properly puts the question:

And now I pray you, Sir,

(For still 't is beating in my mind,) your reason

For raising this sea-storm.'

To which Prospero returns the following very clear and intelligible answer:

Know thus far forth.

By accident most strange, bounteous fortune,
Now, my dear lady, hath mine enemies
Brought to this shore; and by my prescience

I know my zenith doth depend upon

A most auspicious star, whose induence,

If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes
Will ever after droop.'

He seems well convinced, however, of the natural effect of this kind of poetry, for he adds:

Here cease more questions.

Thou art inclined to sleep. Tis a good heaviness,
And give it way. I know thou canst not choose.'

In which opinion all Mr. SHAKSPEARE's readers will readily concur.

We could wish that we had space for the equally interesting and refreshing satire upon 'a spirit called ARIEL,' the dialogue between whom and PROSPERO is turned into ridicule. We must pass on, however, to the assassination of the character of CAliban, that wonderful creation of the great bard. Does the reader remember any thing more

thoroughly tortured from its sense' by any ancient or modern ARISTARCHUS, than the scene in question here:

'We are now introduced to a new personage called Caliban, the son of a certain witch, whose services Prospero thus recounteth:

'We cannot miss him; he does make our fire,
Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices
That profit us. What, ha! slave! Caliban!
Thou earth, thou! speak!'

'It would seem, however, that fetching in wood was his principal occupation, for, without asking what his master wanted, he replies:

There's wood enough within.

PROS. Come forth, I say; there's other business for thee.'

6 Yet it turns out that it is none other than this very business on which he was to be employed: 'PROS. Hag-seed, hence!

Fetch us in fuel, and be quick, (thou wert best,' etc.)

'Ferdinand, the son of the king of Naples, who had been just 'cooling the air with sighs' for his father, whom he supposed to be drowned, now enters, accompanied by Ariel, invisible, who sings a charming song of his own composition, of which we can only afford to give the conclusion:

'Ferdinand calls this a 'sweet air!' . . 'The second act introduces us to the king of Naples and his lords, who have escaped from drowning; but his majesty, happening to miss his son, is very naturally made to express a strong curiosity to know what kind of fish had eaten him:

O thou, mine heir

Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish
Hath made his meal of thee?'

'After some farther conversation, Mr. S., not knowing what to do with the personages he has brought on the stage, devises the notable expedient of making them all fall suddenly asleep :

'The invention of that author who bethought him of sending his characters off kneeling was great, but it was nothing to this. It is evidently a favorite contrivance of the author for terminating a scene, and is here employed in order to introduce Caliban at his everlasting work of fetching in wood.

'Enter Caliban with a bundle of wood. He sees a sailor:

'CAL. Here comes a spirit of his now to torment me
For bringing wood in slowly.'

'Supposing every body to be as fond of wood as Prospero, he adds:

I'll show thee the best springs, I '11 pluck thee berries;

I'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough."

'The act ends with this seducing person getting drunk and singing this delicious lay:

No more dams I '11 make for fish,

Nor fetch firing at requiring.
Nor scrape trencher, nor wash dish.
Ban, ban, Ca-Caliban,

Has a new master. Get a new man.'

The third act represents Ferdinand at the eternal employment of fetching in wood. Then follows a love-scene, which we omit.'

How many petty enemies had the 'myriad-minded SHAKSPEARE,' who would have chuckled over this criticism, had it actually appeared in his day! What nuts it would have been for that feeble reviler and feebler rival of his, 'one HILL!' The summing up of the reviewer is quite in keeping with the fine fancy and striking acumen displayed

in the detail of his criticism. The Tempest,' he says, 'shows us how ridiculous are those rules, to which writers have hitherto subjected themselves, for the purpose, as they fondly imagined, of giving interest to their dramas. It is to be hoped that Mr. SHAKSPEARE'S example will release them, in future, from all obligation to pay any regard to probability in their incidents, or to nature in their characters. It is evidently much more easy to invent a jargon for witches, demons, and spirits, than to deal with human passions and human affections; and it is clearly quite unnecessary to diversify a play with pathetic incidents, when the sleep which has hitherto been confined to the spectators is here transferred to the persons of the drama. Writers need no longer search for lofty subjects, which have been so absurdly deemed requisite to tragedy, when every one can readily find a storm either at sea or on shore. Many improvements will no doubt be made upon the new system, and we may shortly expect to see tragedies upon a fall of snow or a heavy shower of rain. The Tempest' fairly entitles Mr. SHAKSPEARE to the honors due to a reformer of our poetry, and if it produces as much profit as some of those plays in which he has praised princes and traduced the people, we shall be convinced that there are other persons beside Lapland conjurors who can make a comfortable living upon contrary winds and wrecked vessels.'

Turn we now to GIFFORD's review of MILTON'S 'Paradise Lost,' in which the cutand-slash style of that great critic, which was 'nothing if not personal,' is very faithfully portrayed. It opens as follows:

A CONSIDERABLE part of this poem, we understand, was written in gaol; and, though the knowledge of such a fact is by no means likely to prejudice us in favor of the author or his work, we can assure our readers that we have come to the examination of Paradise Lost without any personal feelings toward Mr. MILTON, though we believe he is the same person who, after canting about liberty, sold his flattery to a tyrant and usurper; that he is the author of various seditious pamphlets, of which we have never read a line, and of a book on divorce, so infamous as to have been deemed by the bench of bishops worthy of being burned by the common hangman. A poem founded on a fact recorded in Scripture by a person notorious for his hatred to the church was of itself sufficiently curious to justify us in taking an early notice of it; but we found it at once so extravagant and so unreadable, that we should not have troubled the public with any account of its demerits, had not the author, in a most affected preface, announced certain new notions about rhyme, and laid claim to the merit of setting an admirable example to the writers of all future epics. The subject of Mr. M.'s poem would appear from the title to be the Fall of Adam; but what will our readers think when we assure them that almost the whole of the poem is made up of the disputes, adventures, battles, and defeats of devils, who make war upon their Creator; a monstrous fiction, founded upon the apocryphal book of Enoch? There is only one book out of the the twelve (the ninth) in which there is any thing about the loss of Paradise. Throughout the whole poem the author seems always glad to quit our first parents to get back to the devil, who is by far the most brilliant and interesting character of his pages, and on whose feats, indeed, he reposes with a delight not unworthy of a Manichee. All the lofty enterprises of this amiable personage are related with a feeling of partiality for their hero, which would be amusing were they not told in a singularly involved, obscure, and affected diction. Mr. MILTON's idiom is generally Hebrew or Greek; but, when he condescends to be familiar, the structure of his sentences is modelled upon the Latin. He never condescends to use a plain term when there is a scientific one, an English word when he can find a foreign one, nor an old word when he can coin a new one. Dry with him is adust; a close vest is a habit succinct; starry is stellar; flag is gonfalon; four is quaternion; powerful is pleni-potent; and mingled is interfused. To tell us that war is at hand, he says that it is in precinct; and, to tell us something else, he makes GOD address this line to the angels, counting, no doubt, upon their power of divining what is quite unintelligible to mere

mortals:

'Meanwhile, inhabit lax, ye powers of heaven!'

'A learned angel, who gives Adam the history of the creation, illustrates his meaning by such terms as quadrate, cycle, and epicycle, centric and eccentric, nocturnal and diurnal rhomb, etc.; and the same personage is so unacquainted with the language of this earth as to form such nouns and adjectives as hosting, battalions, aspect, solstitial, vacuous, opacous, etc.

We have a proper sense of the obligation our language has to Mr. MILTON for these splendid additions; our only fear is that it will sink under them. Mr. MILTON was some time at the University, and there, perhaps, became so enamored of the ancients. Had his college residence not been so abruptly terminated, perhaps he might have learned that the language of poetry, in order to be delightful, should be intelligible, and that HOMER and VIRGIL never attempted to engraft foreign words upon the languages which were spoken and understood in the age and country in which their immortal poems were written.'

After a querulous consideration of his preface, and an examination of what MILTON calls English heroic verse without rhyme,' GIFFORD enters upon the work :

The first book opens with a description of hell, of which the flames give 'no light, but darkness VOL. XXII 35

visible; and then follows a dialogue between Satan and Beelzebub, on their fall from heaven, in the course of which Satan thus speaks:

Fallen cherub, to be weak is miserable, doing or suffering: but of this be sure, to do aught good will never be our task, but ever to do ill our sole delight, as being the contrary to His high will whom we resist. If then His Providence out of our evil seek to bring forth good, our labor must be to prevent that end, and out of good still to find means of evil, which ofttines may succeed, so as, perhaps, shall grieve him.'

'This speech, though printed in the poem as verse, we have reduced to its proper state of prose for the purpose of exemplifying Mr. MILTON's notions of musical delight,' his apt numbers,' and 'the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another.'

We have next a biographical catalogue of devils, imitated from HOMER's catalogue of ships. How much finer the imitation is than the original may be seen from the following specimen :

Next, Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's sons,
From Aroer to Nebo, and the wild

Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon

And Horonaim. Senn's realm, beyond

The fewery dale of Sibma, clad with vines,
Aud Eleale to the Asphaltic pool.

Peor his other name, when he enticed
Israel in Sittim, etc.

'Satan now tries to address a speech to his followers, but is seized with a fit of crying, which hinders him from proceeding. At last, he succeeds in delivering his harangue, in which he proposes to call an infernal council, and has a palace built for the speakers, though he had just finished addressing his followers to as much purpose in the open space. Mr. MILTON minutely describes the whole operation of scumining the bullion dross' to adorn the edifice, and kindly informs us that the pillars were of the Doric order. The higher orders of devils get into the hall in their own dimensions like themselves,' but the poor devils are obliged to reduce themselves to smaller shapes,' in order to find room. With this clumsy contrivance the first book closes: and the second contains a report of the debate.

'War is declared, and the council breaks up. Some of the devils amuse themselves with horseraces, others sing songs, with a harp acccompaniment.

'Satan then goes to find out this world, and, after passing many a fiery Alp,' arrives at the gates of hell, where he encounters Sin and Death, about whom there is a most disgusting allegory.

The third book shows us Satan flying between earth and heaven, and God the Father is represented as pointing him out to His Son. A long dialogue, in the taste of the dullest Puritanical eloquence, ensues on the causes and consequences of the fall of man; towards the end of which Satan, having safely arrived at the sun, in the disguise of an inferior angel, requests the Archangel Uriel to direct him to the new-created world. The archangel, with the utmost politeness, shows him the way to the earth, just as any mortal might direct another to a new street, which Satan very properly acknowledges with a low bow. Then we have a history of Adam and Eve, and their embraces, which we dare not quote. The happiest circumstance, however, in the situation of our first parents, appears, in the opinion of Mr. MILTON, to have been their nakedness; for they

Eased the putting off

These troublesome disguises which we wear,' etc.

'In the mean time, Uriel, the sharpest-sighted spirit of all in heaven,' is convinced that Satan has deceived him; he accordingly warns Gabriel, 'chief of the angelic guards,' who immediately orders half a company to draw off,' and search for the intruder. They find him in the captivating disguise of a toad at the ear of Eve; but he springs up at their approach, as when the smutty grain, with sudden blaze diffused, inflames the air; which means, being interpreted, like a spark of gunpowder. He is then brought before Gabriel, who calls him a spy, a liar, a hypocrite, and various other polite names. Satan only replies by a lofty defiance; but the Deity hangs out a pair of scales:

'In these he put two weights,

The sequel each of parting and of fight;

The latter quick up-flew, and kicked the beam.'

'And Satan, knowing his mounted scale aloft,' flies from Paradise.

In the fifth book, Raphael is sent down from heaven to warn Adam of Satan's devices; he 'with quick fan winnows the buxom air,' and alights in Eden just at the hour of dinner:

'And Eve within, due at her hour, prepared
For dinner."

'Adam goes to meet the angel, and

'Awhile discourse they held,

No fear lest dinner cool.'

Adam having expressed some fears lest his repast should be unsavory food to spiritual natures,' the angel assures him that spirits require food as well as man; that even the sun receives

From all his alimental recompense

In humid exhalations, and at even
Sups with the ocean."

"Therefore,' saith he, think not I shall be nice. So down they sat, and to their viands fell.' After dinner, Adam requests Raphael to relate the history of the rebellion in heaven, which he does at no small length, for the sixth book finds him only at the beginning of the first battle. He