studies, and produced in his own modest words a 'pamphlet' of 'untutored lines,' which remains a unique example of pictured sorrow. It need hardly be said that this free use of the materials gathered from his early reading in the Roman poets does not in the least detract from the perfect originality, to say nothing of the beauty and power, of Shakespeare's work. In a mind of such vital force the best materials are, as I have said, little more than seeds hardly to be recognised in the developed fulness of the plant and beauty of the flower. The secret of poetical life cannot, indeed, be discovered by any examination of the soil in which it grew, or of the elements by which it was nurtured. In other words, no analysis of influences and conditions, however complete, can pierce the great mystery of creative genius. By a subtle alchemy it transmutes all inferior elements into its own pure and lustrous gold. None the less is it a problem of criticism to trace as far as possible the nature and uses of these elements. This is what I have endeavoured to do with regard to one section of the manifold materials that contributed to the growth and development of Shakespeare's unrivalled genius. And though I must defer for the present the wider evidence of his Roman studies, and especially of his familiarity with Ovid, which I have collected from a careful examination of the dramas, enough perhaps has been already adduced to illustrate the main position of these papers, that Shakespeare was a fair Latin scholar, and in his earlier life a diligent student of Ovid. Before leaving the poems, it seems almost a duty to glance for a moment at their profounder ethical and reflective aspects. Mr. Swinburne has described them as narrative, or rather semi-narrative, and semi-reflective poems, and this expresses their true character. And it may justly be said that if Shakespeare follows Ovid in the narrative and descriptive part of his work, in the vivid picturing of sensuous passion, he is as decisively separated from him in the reflective part, the higher purpose and ethical significance of the poems. The underlying subject in both is the same, the debasing nature and destructive results of the violent sensuous impulses, which in antiquity so often usurped the name of love, although in truth they have little in common with the nobler passion. The influence of fierce inordinate desire is dealt with by Shakespeare in these poems in all its breadth as affecting both sexes, and in all its intensity as blasting the most sacred interests and relationships of life. In working out the subject, Shakespeare shows his thorough knowledge of its seductive outward charm, of the arts and artifices, the persuasions and assaults, the raptures and languors of stimulated sensual passion. In this he is quite a match for the erotic and elegiac poets of classic times, and especially of Roman literature. He is not likely therefore in any way to undervalue the attraction or the power of what they celebrate in strains so fervid and rapturous. But, while contemplating the lower passion steadily in all its force and charm, he has at the same time the higher vision which enables him to see through and beyond it, the reflective accuracy its true worth. It is in this higher power of reflective insight, in depth and vigour of thought as well as feeling, that Shakespeare's earliest efforts are marked off even from the better works of those whom he took, if not as his masters, at least as his models and guides. He was himself full of rich and vigorous life, deepened by sensibilities of the rarest strength and delicacy; and in early youth had realised, in his own experience, the impetuous force of passionate impulses. But his intellectual power no less than the essential depth and purity of his nobler emotional nature would effectually prevent his ever becoming soft fancy's slave.' A temporary access of passion would but rouse to fresh activity the large discourse looking before and after with which he was pre-eminently endowed. As such passionate moods subsided, he would meditate profoundly on the working and ultimate issues of these fierce explosive elements, if unrestrained by the higher influences of intellectual and moral life. A spirit so richly gifted, capable of soaring with unwearied wing into the highest heaven of thought and emotion, must have early felt not only that violent delights have violent ends, but that voluntary self-abandonment to the blind and imperious calls of appetite and passion is the most awful form of moral and social suicide. These searching youthful experiences seem to have determined, almost unconsciously perhaps, Shakespeare's earliest choice of subjects. In any case, the brilliant deification of lawless passion in the Venus and Adonis' but emphasises the social ruin produced by the destruction of female purity and truth it exemplifies. In the 'Lucrece,' the wider effects of unbridled lust are shown in the sacrifice of a noble life, the desolation of a faithful and united household, and the dethronement of a kingly dynasty. In working out the latter subject, Shakespeare has, as we have seen, skilfully interwoven, with the ruin of Tarquin's house, the destruction of Priam and his realm from similar causes. This theme he recurred to again at a later period, in the wonderful and perplexing drama of Troilus and Cressida,' one main purpose of which appears to be that of criticising, under skilfully disguised forms, the early Greek conception of heroic motive, if not of heroic character. Shakespeare appears to have regarded the tale of Troy divine as at bottom little better than an idealised version of the savage custom of marriage by capture, a kind of poetical gloss on the barbarous tribal wars waged in early times about women. He seems at once to have exhibited and condemned with dramatic force and intensity, the motive of the whole conflict in the character of Cressida. But it must be remembered that in the very earliest poem we have from Shakespeare's pen this higher note of the modern world is clearly sounded-the note that Love is Lord of all,' and that love is something infinitely higher and more divine than the lawless vagrant passion which in pagan times passed under that name. To the modern mind, while the latter is blind, selfish, and often brutal in proportion to its strength, the ardour and gentleness, humility and devotion, the very heart and crown of life. While the lower passion cares only for the gratification of an intensely egoistic appetite, the nobler is ever supremely concerned for the highest good of its object. This contrast is expressed with reflective emphasis in the following stanzas towards the close of the Venus and Adonis': Call it not Love, for Love to heaven is fled, Since sweating Lust on earth usurp'd his name; Under whose simple semblance he hath fed Love comforteth like sunshine after rain, In this reproof of the pagan goddess of love, the higher note of the modern world is, as I have said, struck fully and clearly. It is repeated with tragic emphasis in the Lucrece,' deepened in the sonnets, and developed through all the gracious range of higher female character in the dramas. Nowhere indeed is the vital difference in the social axes of the ancient and modern world more vividly seen, than in the contrast between the Lesbias, Delias, and Corinnas of Roman poetry, and the Mirandas, Portias, and Imogens of Shakespeare's dramas. In the one we have the monotonous ardours and disdains, the gusts and glooms, the tricks and artifices belonging to the stunted life of lower impulse; in the other, the fadeless beauty and grace, the vivacity and intelligence, the gentleness and truth of perfect womanhood. I hope, hereafter, to say something more on this tempting theme. Meanwhile, as I have had to emphasise Shakespeare's relation to the poet laureate of wandering love, it seemed right in passing to point out the higher features by which he is separated from Ovid, even in the early poems which owe most to his influence. THOS. S BAYNES I THE CROOKIT MEG: A STORY OF THE YEAR ONE. XVIII. AM a poor hand at chronology: the only dates I can readily assimilate are those which come from the Mediterranean: but you will please to remember that the harvest home at Achnagatt was on the Wednesday; that the conversation recorded in the last chapter took place on the Thursday; and that the Crookit Meg' is timed to reach Longhaven on Monday night. So much for the days of the week I must refer you to the columns of the Journal if you are anxious to identify the days of the month. : Eppie was curiously restless during these intervening days. She sat talking dreamily to her mother, who was ill in bed, or wandered aimlessly about the farm and among the rocks. But no one came near her. There was the occasional white sail of a passing ship at sea. A flock of golden plover wheeled over the house: the melancholy wail of the curlew was heard from the distant mosses. The men were at work in some outlying fields. Mennie, her mother's old servant, flitted uneasily about her pale mistress, who seemed to her experienced eye to be growing thinner and frailer each successive day,-wasting away with the wasting year. And the weather was as still as the house; the noisy equinoctial gales had exhausted their passion, and the days were soft and moist and warm, though the sun was invisible through the dull steamy haze that rested on land and sea. It was that ghost of the Indian summer which visits Scotland in October. At last Eppie could bear it no longer. She got Watty to saddle Bess, and she started by herself for a canter across the moors. The swift motion brought the blood into her cheeks. The little mare galloped gamely, and for an hour her mistress did not tighten the reins. Then of a sudden the pony came to a dead stop,—she had cast a shoe. It was well on in the Thursday afternoon. Fortunately the mischance had occurred on the Saddle-hill within a few hundred yards of the Ale-house tavern. There is, or was, a smithy on the other side of the road. Eppie dismounted and led the mare to the smithy, which was growing effulgent as the darkness gathered. Rob Ranter, the smith, was absent; but a little imp, who had been blowing the bellows to keep his hand in, undertook to fasten the shoe which Eppie had picked up when she dismounted. The people of that district have a curious liking for diminutives; and this little imp of the forge was familiarly and affectionately known as 'the deevilikie.' Meantime Eppie, gathering up her skirt, sauntered across the road. On the bench in front of the hostelry a familiar figure was seated. It was our old acquaintance Corbie,-the honest liar.' A pewter he had been drinking hard. Eppie eyed him curiously and coldly as he greeted her with drunken gravity. 6 Ay, ay, my bonnie young leddie,-a sicht o' a sonsy lass like you is guid for sair een. What wud you be pleased to tak? Lucky will be here presently. Come awa', Lucky, and attend to the young leddie. And so as I was sayin' when interrupit by your lordship,' he continued, and a wicked gleam came into the drunken eyes- I gaed doun to Yokieshill to see Joe Hacket,-na, na-I'm wrang-Joe was the auld laird, and the auld laird's dead and damned. Preserve us a', that's actionable, and veritas convicii non excusat as they say in the Coorts. Or as the Doctor pits it verra pleasantly, letters of cursing, says he, being the exclusive privelege o' the Kirk. Weel, you maun understan' as the morning was fine for the time o' year, I had the mear oot early and rode aff to veesit a client or twa. And first I gaed to Mains o' Rora, for the new millart has a gude-gangin' plea regardin' the sma' sequels o' the outsucken multures,-bannock, knaveship, lock-and-gowpen, and sic like. And Rora himsel❜-the doited body--winna lat the tacksmen at Clola cut their peats in his moss, for he manteens, you see, that the clause cum petariis et turbariis is no in the charter.-Anither gill, Lucky, anither gill.-But that, my dear, is a contestation that is not regarded wi' favour by the Coort, for the servitude o' feal and divot may be constituted by custom, in like manner as the clause cum fabrilibus (whereof our gude freen Rob Ranter is an ensample) has fa'en into disuse. But these are kittle questions o' heritable richt, which maun be decided by the Lords o' Coonsel and Session,-the market-cross o' Edinbro' and the pier and shore o' Leith being communis patria. And sae, my Lord,'-as he became tipsier he turned more frequently to the Court, which he fancied he was addressing-being arrived at Yokieshill, as aforesaid, I tauld Mr. Hairy Hacket that it wud be convenient if he wud sattle the sma' accoont for business undertaken by me on the instructions o' his late feyther. You maun understan' my Lord, that the accoont was maist rediculously sma'-nae aboon twa hundred poonds or thereby. Weel, he glowered at me like a hell-cat, and swore that not one doyt or bodle or plack o' his should gae into the pocket of a drucken scoonrel; drucken scoonrel, my Lord, these were the verra words, for I made a note o' them at the time, and I wull tak' the oath de calumnia if your Lordship pleases. "Mr. Hairy Hacket," says I, "ye'll pay my taxed bill o' expenses by Mononday mornin', or by the Lord I'll see you oot o' Yokieshill." At this he jist gaed fairly gyte. Says he, coming up to me pale as death, and catchin' me by the back o' the neek," Oot you go in the first place, you leein' scamp,"-" leein' scamp," my Lord; and whan he gat me ootside the door, he whistled to an ugly savage tyke that was lyin' in the sun. "Nell," says he to the bitch quite coolly, takin' oot his watch, "if this infernal swindlin' scoonrel is not ootside the yard afore I count ten, gae him a taste o' your teeth." Mercy on us, the beast looked up in bis face wi' a low snarl.-What's come o' the mutchkin, Lucky?—Ay, ay, Mr. Hairy |