SHAKSPEARE has furnished titles to two volumes, and entire subject-matter
for one. SHAKSPEARE has furnished titles to two volumes, and entire subject-matter for one.
1. Shakspeare's Autobiographical Poems. By CHARLES ARMITAGE Bitowe.
2. Letters on the Natural History of the Insects mentioned in Shak. spectres Plays. By BOBEI1T PATERSON.
The first of these works is an endeavour to throw a new light upon the life and character of SHAKSPEARE from his own works, poems as well as plays. Mr. BROWN conceives he has resolved the riddle which has puzzled many modern writers, and disco. vered a new mode of reading the Sonnets ; which turn out to be no sonnets at all. Upon evidence at the very best conjectural, and resting, slender as it is, on a matter by no means exactly de- ternained—the chronology of the dramas, our hobby-rider proves to his satisfaction that SHAKSPEARE visited Italy, as well as the cities he went to and the route he travelled. He also writes a good deal upon the poet's "Learning," "Knowledge," and "Dra- matic Knowledge and Art;" expanding into chapters the few sentences in which POPE comprehended and dismissed these sub- jects. He also spends much tediousness upon his classical attain- ments, when we have the positive assertion of BEN JONS011 that he had " small Latin and less Greek,"—who, "besides that he had no imaginable temptation to falsehood, wrote at a time when the acquirements of Shakspeare were known to multitudes." In addition to these topics, there is an attempt to paint the character of SHAKSPEARE from his works ; together with a list of his dramas, and remarks upon many of them, which, though not without ingenuity in parts, are too obviously the product of whim and opinion to be called criticism. Upon the whole, this book is ingenious, but baseless; dashed with Cockneyisms and attic- teflon, with touches of flippancy, and some conceit ; but not un- readable, cr without value to the student of SHAKSPEARE.
Letters on the Natural History of the Insects mentioned in Shahspeare's Plays, is the substance of a series of papers read before the Natural History Society of Belfast on " public nights," when ladies are admitted as well as gentlemen. The book con- tains many popular facts connected with the natural history of insects, with quotations from SHAKSPEARE, and from other poets who have alluded to their habits: but there is nothing remarkable in the passages or the commentaries, except inasmuch as they prove the general accuracy of SHAKSPEARE and the exact- ness with which he drew from nature.
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