[PR 2923 
 1864 
 .B54 
 Copy 1 
 
 :EKCENTENARY 
 
 -ELEBRATION 
 
 ki\ 0I S|a|§|i«ac?, 
 
 Mciv-Kixgfani Misforic-lxeTiea(ojica( Society, 
 
 Boston, Mass., April 23, 1864. 
 
 Remarks and Ode by John H. Sheppard. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY, 
 
 By GEORGE C. RAND & AVERY, No. 3, CORNHILL. 
 
 MDCCCLXIV. 
 
 
TERCENTENARY 
 
 CELEBRATION 
 
 cl| ol S|a|^jpmc^, 
 
 J(ciu-En(|(anb Misfonc-Jxcncalocjical Socicf^% 
 
 Boston, Mass., April 23. 1S64. 
 
 'j ^ ^3 ,> , 
 
 Remarks and Ode by John H. Sheppard. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY, 
 
 BY GP:0R(JE C. KAND & AYERY, No. 3, CORNHILL. 
 
 MDCCCLXIV. 
 
a:.^^ 
 
 <o 
 
 " Sliakspeare slioukl be regarded not merely as a wonderful genius, but as a 
 providential man, wlio was sent to do a work for God and humanity in the new 
 and marvellous age that we call modern. Luther opened the Bible; but Shak- 
 speare unsealed humiin life, and brought the broad play and inmost mind of its 
 scenes, events, characters, passions, and principles, into full light and air, and did 
 not a little to interpret the Word and Spirit and Kingdom of God to the world." — 
 Sjieech of Rev. Sarmiel Osgood, D.D., at '■'■The Century,''^ Xew-York City. 
 
 r. 
 
 ..Ae'03 
 
REMARKS. 
 
REMARKS 
 
 Fisher Ames, in an eloquent eulogy on the death 
 of Washington, delivered before the Legislature of 
 Massachusetts on the eighth day of February, 1800, 
 speaking of the rarity of great men in history, re- 
 marks, " In all this dreary length of way, they ap- 
 pear like five or six light-houses on as many thousand 
 miles of coast: they gleam upon the surrounding 
 darkness with an inextinguishable splendor, like stars 
 seen through a mist ; but they are seen like stars, to 
 cheer, to guide, and to save." 
 
 To men of this original character we owe the 
 moral improvement and intellectual grandeur which 
 have distinguished a few nations above all others. 
 Some by their discoveries, others by their inventions, 
 and here and there a transcendent genius whose writ- 
 ings have elevated and adorned our race, are among 
 these benefactors of mankind ; as though the Al- 
 mighty had specially created a superior being, and 
 given him an almost superhuman power to guide a 
 nation to a higher and happier destiny. Such w^ere 
 Lord Bacon and Sir Isaac Newton ; and we may add 
 William Shakspeare, whose dramatic wTitings have 
 done more to improve public taste and embellish the 
 arts of life than any uninspired author, ancient or 
 modern. 
 
 The home of childhood, where the eye of genius 
 
first looks abroad upon the scenery of this beautiful 
 world, sometimes gives a coloring to all the future 
 life. It may have been so with Shakspeare ; for 
 Stratford upon Avon, where he was born, lies in the 
 midst of a picturesque country, and perhaps contrib- 
 uted to those ideal landscapes which have charmed 
 the world. We know but little of his early educa- 
 tion ; only that his advantages were not superior to 
 those of thousands of other boys, — a few years at a 
 free grammar-school in his native town. Ben Jonson, 
 in a poem to the memory of his beloved William 
 Shakspeare, says, ^' Thou hadst small Latin, and less 
 Greek." Of his acquirements, however, we may form 
 some idea by a study of his writings. They afford 
 indubitable evidence that he was a great reader, 
 and had a most tenacious memory. The English 
 authors of the time, translations of the Greek and 
 Roman classics, works of history, voyages and travels, 
 poetry, and indeed all sources of knowledge, even the 
 dry technicalities of the law, must have come within 
 his mental grasp. In this way he garnered up mate- 
 rials for the future ingenuity of his pen. That he 
 had an exquisite ear for music, and a natural taste 
 for painting and sculpture, no diligent reader of his 
 plays can doUbt ; and in them we can trace some 
 fruits of the seed sown in this grammar-school. But 
 the training of his mind went far beyond any human 
 tuition; as though there had been some invisible being 
 watching over his progress, like the Genius Loci, ac- 
 cording to ancient superstition; for he was an ardent 
 lover of Nature. This round world, with its blue 
 mountains in the distance, its green forests, vales, 
 and glens, lake, river, and ocean, the starry heavens 
 above, and the sun and moon in their glory, were 
 
mirrored on his soul, as it were a photograph to look 
 upon when he wrote. No poet that ever lived equalled 
 him as a word-painter : his mind reflected the very 
 features and drapery of Nature herself 
 
 There w^as one intellectual attribute peculiar to 
 him, — original, striking, and of surpassing force ; 
 the ideal conception so well described by Dugald 
 Stewart in his '' Philosophy of the Mind," — a power 
 not only of forming ideal creations, but of bringing 
 persons and places of distant ages before the mind's 
 eye, as though they w^ere present. Walter Scott, in 
 his inimitable Waverley Novels, manifested, though 
 in a less degree, this marvellous faculty. On this ac- 
 count, the learned Dr. Arnold, in his Lectures on His- 
 tory, has observed, that in the " Fortunes of Nigel " 
 he presents the most life-like pictures of King James 
 that have been drawn by any historian. The view 
 of Rome in "Julius Caesar," and the isle of Prospeio 
 in the " Tempest," might be offered in illustration, if 
 time would allow. 
 
 He seems at a very early age to have acquired a 
 knowledge of the world, — the precursor of his aston- 
 ishing development of the affections and passions. 
 Such knowledge is a fearful gift to the young; for 
 the sight of the human heart in its worst estate is 
 terrible. Take, for example, one of his deepest and 
 sublimest tragedies, — as " Otllello " or " Hamlet " or 
 "Lear" or '^Macbeth," — and we shudder at the de- 
 pravity there exhibited. This profound knowledge 
 of man is one of the pillars on which his ideal concep- 
 tions securely rest ; for he never violates good sense, 
 nor introduces characters inconsistent with the object 
 of his drama. 
 
 Shakspeare has been considered by a few persons 
 
as a writer of lax morals, because sometimes a gross 
 allusion or piece of vulgar wit from some clown or 
 low fellow crops out in his plays ; but most un- 
 justly, and without cause. There may be solitary 
 passages which offend prudish modesty : such excres- 
 cences belong rather to the age in which he lived 
 than to the taste of the great dramatist. Dr. Chal- 
 mers, the late divine of Scotland, read all his plays 
 at sixty-five, and remarked, "I look upon Shakspeare 
 as an intellectual miracle ; " and, at another time, " I 
 dare say Shakspeare was the greatest man that ever 
 lived ; perhaps greater than Sir Isaac Newton himself" 
 Let his tragedies and comedies be read, studied, and 
 reviewed, act by act, scene by scene, as a scholar 
 would read Chaucer's " Canterbury Tales " or Spen- 
 ser's ^' Faery Queen," and there would be no exception 
 to the exalted opinion which Dr. Chalmers, Goethe, 
 Hallam, and the late John Quincy Adams, entertained 
 of this wonderful man. 
 
 In contemplating the intellectual character of 
 Shakspeare, our thoughts are necessarily led to the 
 stage, ¥^hich inspired his dramatic efforts ; and here 
 may arise a question of ethics, touching the morale of 
 the theatre, — a subject on which many good and ex- 
 cellent men of taste and learning differ in opinion. 
 But neither the time nor the occasion requires a dis- 
 cussion of this kind. It is enough to observe, that, 
 without the stage, the genius of Shakspeare might 
 have slept forever, and Sophocles and Euripides and 
 Terence, whose dramas have charmed the world for 
 ages, been unknown. To the pure, all things are pure ; 
 and it is hard to believe that a virtuous mind was 
 ever polluted by a well-written play enacted in a 
 respectable theatre. 
 
9 
 
 Pardon me for a personal and local allusion. It is 
 to that joyous period of life when I first saw and felt 
 the power of this great writer, as it were, in his glory. 
 I was a boy at college. Three of us, classmates, one 
 evenino; found ourselves at the old Federal-street 
 Theatre, — the cynosure of Boston long before she 
 became a city, and her beautiful Franklin Place a 
 crescent of palatial stores. Cooper that night took 
 the part of Hamlet; and, I think, Mrs. Powell of 
 Ophelia. We entered a world of dazzling beauty. 
 There was a dense audience : the pit, where we three 
 boys sat midway, fronting the stage, seemed all heads 
 and eyes ; and the circle of boxes, row above row, 
 was crowned with handsome men and women, the 
 eiile of the town, in elegant costume. In a flood of 
 light, the orchestra struck up some rich old airs; and 
 then, on a scene of profound stillness, the curtain 
 rose. The recess of the stage looked dim and misty, 
 representing a midnight hour ; and as we listened to 
 the low, troubled voices of the sentinels, the clock 
 struck twelve. Then came on a gallant form in 
 armor, in which '- the majesty of buried Denmark did 
 sometime dwell." It was the ghost of Hamlet. To 
 be sure, we boys were not frightened like Partridge 
 in Tom Jones, though our faces were solemn. In the 
 next scene, Mr. Cooper made his appearance amidst a 
 drowning applause. But I will not dwell upon a play 
 so well known to the public. There may be some 
 present who have seen him in Hamlet; and perhaps, 
 in this brief reminiscence of by-gone times, the 
 chords of memory may be touched. 
 
 Mr. Cooper, the great American actor, had a re- 
 markably elegant and graceful form : the expression 
 of his fiice was manly and commanding; and, in the 
 
10 
 
 deep mourning of the Prince, his bearing was digni- 
 fied, and his gestures appropriate. Never shall 1 for- 
 get the clear, rich, deep tones of his fine dramatic 
 voice. There was no rant, nor bellowing surges of 
 passion, out-Heroding Herod, so popular among some 
 amateurs of the theatre in the present day; for this 
 eminent tragedian was always natural. Mrs. Powell 
 was then a brilliant star of the stage, — a lady much 
 respected for her talents, and beloved for her private 
 virtues Her voice was sweet and musical in its in- 
 tonations, with a touch of sadness in its cadence, like 
 the air of " Annie Lawrie," said to be heard by the 
 Scotch woman at the siege of Lucknow. Bernard 
 was then the best comedian of the day. But they 
 have all gone ; and the Federal-street Theatre has 
 disappeared with them. 
 
 The performance of" Hamlet," as I then saw it, left 
 no injurious traces to call forth the repentance of 
 after-years. It rather filled the soul with sublime 
 emotions, and awoke a noble ambition to do some- 
 thiniJi:. 
 
 "Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamiir in illis." 
 
 The taste of the higher circles has changed. Private^ 
 tableaux vivantsy public readings and lectures, have be- 
 come fashionable; and more especially the readings 
 on Shakspeare from the classic and magnificent voice 
 of Fanny Kemble, who will long be remembered. For 
 in no seminary of education, nor school of rhetoric, 
 have the vocal powers been cultivated to that degree 
 of excellence which distinguishes the histrionic art. 
 Indeed, we live in a woild where good and evil are 
 found together in almost every state of society; and 
 it is the highest point of wisdom to choose the good. 
 
11 
 
 and reject the evil. We carry our vices with us to 
 the theatre : seldom do we acquire them there. 
 
 When Shakspeare, a few years before his death, 
 retired from the gayeties of London, he returned to 
 his native place, and there, with an ample fortune, 
 lived in elegance. He had seen enough of the world, 
 and cared but little for its honors or its applause. 
 He took no pains even to collect his thirty-five plays 
 (for " Titus Andronicus " is thought to be spurious), 
 and to revise them, but left them to erudite critics to 
 discuss, and curious antiquaries to resolve, age after 
 age, to this day. He died in the meridian of his 
 talents ; some say, on the anniversary of his birth, 
 1616, at fifty-two years of age. Fortunately a por- 
 trait of him, taken from his bust, has come down to 
 us : it is a noble and magnificent face. Of his fig- 
 ure, Aubrey says, '' He was a handsome, well-shaped 
 man." A more perfect model of a gentleman was 
 never drawn than in the advice of Polonius to Laertes, 
 wherein he says, — 
 
 " Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar." 
 
 There is reason to believe that Shakspeare was at 
 heart of a religious turn of mipd. There are many 
 passages in his plays which evince his faith in a 
 special Providence, and there are often solemn allu- 
 sions to the spirit-world ; in the sweet words of Long- 
 fellow, — 
 
 " To the islands of the blest, 
 To the land of the hereafter." 
 
 And who but a believer in Christianity could have 
 written as he did of Christmas ? — a holy day, which 
 every year in this country seems more and more 
 recovering from past neglect : — 
 
12 
 
 " Some say that ever, 'gainst that season comes 
 In which our Saviour's birth is celebrated, 
 The bird of dawning singeth all night long." 
 
 It is pleasing to meditate on places where extraor- 
 dinary genius or illustrious merit has made a home. 
 Imagination lingers in the Yale of Yaucluse, where 
 Petrarch revived letters ; or in Abbotsford, dear to 
 all the lovers of romance and minstrelsy; and in 
 Stratford upon Avon, where Shakspeare was born and 
 died. And who is there in our own beloved land 
 whose heart does not cling to those sacred precincts 
 where lived the Father of his Country, — Mount Ver- 
 non ; scarcely redeemed from all vulgar uses by the 
 eloquent Everett, and set apart as a hallowed spot, 
 before it was surrounded by the flames of civil war ? 
 May it be preserved by a kind Providence from dese- 
 cration until we are again restored to union and 
 peace ! 
 
 The influence of Shakspeare's plays in England 
 and the United States has exceeded that of all other 
 writings except the Holy Scriptures. They are found 
 in almost every dwelling of taste, and their beauties 
 are familiar to every educated mind. Perhaps they 
 are more generally read in the United States than in 
 Great Britain, in consequence of our more numerous 
 schools and seminaries. As in his time our ancestors 
 generally belonged to England, we rightfully and cor- 
 dially claim Shakspeare as also our own sweet poet ; 
 and happy is the thought, that, on this anniversary 
 of his birth, the banner of St. George and the stars 
 and stripes of our Republic can wave in unison to 
 the memory of the same great man ! 
 
ODE 
 
15 
 
 ODE ON SHAKSPEARE'S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 BY JOHX H. SHEPPARD, ESQ. 
 
 In Stratford upon Avon, 
 Where the silent waters flow, 
 The immortal Drama woke from slci'p 
 Three hundred years ago : 
 Then, as the long, dark ages rolled away, 
 A light from heaven shone on Siiakspeahe's face. 
 Land of the illustrious dead ! with thee this day 
 We love to linger near that hallowed place ; 
 For wert thou not the father-land of our New-England race ? 
 
 Beyond the Rocky Mountains, 
 From the Golden Gate of fame, 
 Fcir east to Schoodic's misty shores. 
 Is heard his honored name. 
 Live where we may, such life-like scenes he drew. 
 Arrayed in robes of beauty all his own. 
 Nature herself proclaims each picture true 
 To Albion's echoing hills : nor there alone ; 
 As e'en Niagara speaks in Prospero's thunder-tone. 
 
 Ah ! what a halcyon memory 
 Our school-boy days bring on, 
 When young Othello told us how 
 He Desdemona won ! 
 Where are the voices that once filled the air ? 
 Let not stern manhood deem the illusion wrong, 
 When the boy dreamed the enchanted isle was there 
 Near Academic grove, unknown to song, 
 AVhere Kennebec among the hills meandering glides along. 
 
 Not in the theatre alone 
 Is seen his wondrous power ; 
 Though some great actor tread the stage, 
 The pageant of an hour : 
 He visits many a humble home ; and, when 
 Some brave thought stirs the heart by sorrow riven, 
 We feel like heroes, though we live like men 
 In lowly lot ; for here full oft at even 
 The Bard of Avon sweeps the ^5^olian harp of heaven. 
 
16 
 
 England, with all thy glory 
 From the Druid days of old, 
 Not Creey's pride, nor Agincourt, 
 Nor Field of the Cloth of Gold, 
 Shines with such virtue in all coming time 
 As genius, learning, minstrelsy, inspire : 
 They fill the ideal world with thoughts sublime ; 
 Guiding Ambition's eye to aim far higher 
 Than light the flames of civil war with strange, unholy fire ! 
 
 They gleam like stars in history 
 Along a dreary waste 
 Who first enlarged the bounds of mind, 
 Or raised the tone of taste. 
 Thus Bacon looms up in that glorious age 
 Of Spenser's lay and Jonson's critic eye ; 
 When a Promethean spark illumed the stage. 
 And Shakspeare drew such scenes of time gone by, 
 That life a drama seems 'midst shadows of eternity. 
 
LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 
 014 156 809 7 %