ces of that poetic
power, which I mentioned above, of making every thing present to the
imagination--both the forms, and the passions which modify those forms,
either actually, as in the representations of love or anger, or other
human affections; or imaginatively, by the different manner in which
inanimate objects, or objects unimpassioned themselves, are caused to be
seen by the mind in moments of strong excitement, and according to the
kind of the excitement,--whether of jealousy, or rage, or love, in the only
appropriate sense of the word, or of the lower impulses of our nature, or
finally of the poetic feeling itself. It is, perhaps, chiefly in the power
of producing and reproducing the latter that the poet stands distinct.

The subject of the _Venus and Adonis_ is unpleasing; but the poem itself
is for that very reason the more illustrative of Shakespeare. There are
men who can write passages of deepest pathos and even sublimity on
circumstances personal to themselves and stimulative of their own
passions; but they are not, therefore, on this account poets. Read that
magnificent burst of woman's patriotism and exultation, _Deborah's Song of
Victory_; it is glorious, but nature is the poet there. It is quite
another matter to become all things and yet remain the same,--to make the
changeful god be felt in the river, the lion, and the flame;--this it is,
that is the true imagination. Shakespeare writes in this poem, as if he
were of another planet, charming you to gaze on the movements of Venus and
Adonis, as you would on the twinkling dances of two vernal butterflies.

Finally, in this poem and the _Rape of Lucrece_, Shakespeare gave ample
proof of his possession of a most profound, energetic, and philosophical
mind, without which he might have pleased, but could not have been a great
dramatic poet. Chance and the necessity of his genius combined to lead him
to the drama his proper province: in his conquest of which we should
consider both the difficulties which opposed him, and the advantages by
which he was assisted.

Shakespeare's Judgment equal to his Genius.

Thus then Shakespeare appears, from his _Venus and Adonis_ and _Rape of
Lucrece_ alone, apart from all his great works, to have possessed all the
conditions of the true poet. Let me now proceed to destroy, as far as may
be in my power, the popular notion that he was a great dramatist by mere
instinct, that he grew immortal in his own despite, an