The effect is indeed overpowering, but
the mode of producing it is by no means poetical. The praise which
Schlegel gives to THOMAS, LORD CROMWELL, and to SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE,
is altogether exaggerated. They are very indifferent compositions,
which have not the slightest pretensions to rank with HENRY V or
HENRY VIII. We suspect that the German critic was not very well
acquainted with the dramatic contemporaries of Shakespeare, or aware
of their general merits; and that he accordingly mistakes a
resemblance in style and manner for an equal degree of excellence.
Shakespeare differed from the other writers of his age not in the
mode of treating his subjects, but in the grace and power which he
displayed in them. The reason assigned by a literary friend of
Schlegel's for supposing THE PURITAN; OR, THE WIDOW OF WATLING
STREET, to be Shakespeare's, viz. that it is in the style of Ben
Jonson, that is to say, in a style just the reverse of his own, is
not very satisfactory to a plain English understanding. LOCRINE, and
THE LONDON PRODIGAL, if they were Shakespeare's at all, must have
been among the sins of his youth. ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM contains
several striking passages, but the passion which they express is
rather that of a sanguine tem-perament than of a lofty imagination;
and in this respect they approximate more nearly to the style of
other writers of the time than to Shakespeare's.
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