If nobody but Shakespeare could have written the former, nobody but
Chaucer would have thought of the latter.--Chaucer was the most
literal of poets, as Richardson was of prose-writers.
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
This is a very noble play. Though not in the first class of
Shakespeare's productions, it stands next to them, and is, we think,
the finest of his historical plays, that is, of those in which he
made poetry the organ of history, and assumed a certain tone of
character and sentiment, in conformity to known facts, instead of
trusting to his observations of general nature or to the unlimited
indulgence of his own fancy. What he has added to the history, is
upon a par with it. His genius was, as it were, a match for history
as well as nature, and could grapple at will with either. This play
is full of that pervading comprehensive power by which the poet
could always make himself master of time and circumstances. It
presents a fine picture of Roman pride and Eastern magnificence: and
in the struggle between the two, the empire of the world seems
suspended, 'like the swan's down-feather:
That stands upon the swell at full of tide,
And neither way inclines.'
The characters breathe, move, and live. Shakespeare does not stand
reasoning on what his characters would do or say, but at once
BECOMES them, and speaks and acts for them.
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