Some inconsistencies
Public honors
Remarkable successes; re-enters Parliament
Illness and growing weakness
Conclusion of the History; foreign and domestic honors
Resigns seat in Parliament
Social habits
Literary tastes
Final illness and death; his fame

SHAKSPEARE; OR, THE POET.

By Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The debt of genius to its age and preceding time.

The era of Shakspeare favorable to dramatic entertainments.

The stage a substitute for the newspaper of his era.

The poet draws upon extant materials—­the lime and mortar to his hand.

Plays which show the original rock on which his own finer stratum is laid.

In drawing upon tradition and upon earlier plays the poet’s memory is taxed equally with his invention.

All originality is relative; every thinker is retrospective.

The world’s literary treasure the result of many a one’s labor; centuries have contributed to its existence and perfection.

Shakspeare’s contemporaries, correspondents, and acquaintances.

Work of the Shakspeare Society in gathering material to throw light upon the poet’s life, and to illustrate the development of the drama.

His external history meagre; Shakspeare is the only biographer of
Shakspeare.

What the sonnets and the dramas reveal of the poet’s mind and character.

His unique creative power, wisdom of life, and great gifts of imagination.

Equality of power in farce, tragedy, narrative, and love-songs.

Notable traits in the poet’s character and disposition; his tone pure, sovereign, and cheerful.

Despite his genius, he shares the halfness and imperfection of humanity.

A seer who saw all things to convert them into entertainments, as master of the revels to mankind.

JOHN MILTON:  POET AND PATRIOT.

By Thomas Babington Macaulay.

His long-lost essay on Doctrines of Christianity.

As a poet, his place among the greatest masters of the art.

Unfavorable circumstances of his era, born “an age too late”.

A rude era more favorable to poetry.

The poetical temperament highest in a rude state of society.

Milton distinguished by the excellence of his Latin verse.

His genius gives to it an air of nobleness and freedom.

Characteristics and magical influence of Milton’s poetry.

Mechanism of his language attains exquisite perfection.

“L’Allegro” and “II Penseroso,” “Comus” and “Samson Agonistes” described.

“Comus” properly more lyrical than dramatic.

Milton’s preference for “Paradise Regained” over “Paradise Lost”.

Contrasts between Milton and Dante.