that this story is like that of the murder of the two Princes? Then we have the re-burying by the priest. Would anyone suppose, that if the orders said to have been given were carried into effect by this messenger of the church, that he would have dared to have left the bodies of the two Princes under the stairs? No: therefore upon that account, the splendid deception in the reign of Charles II. is entirely fallacious. Would there be enough of the bones left to distinguish the size of the children? Then, if not, the world has been grossly deceived. Their ages would have been, at their supposed death, thirteen and eleven years. Now, on the other hand, it has been asserted that the two Princes escaped to the continent, and that Perkin Warbeck was in reality Richard Duke of York. You will now naturally ask upon what evidence this is asserted. This young man was so acknowledged by the Kings of France and Scotland: the Scotch King gave him in marriage the Lady Catherine Douglass, and invaded England with a large army in order to restore him to the throne. Sir William Stanley, the wealthiest subject in England, and also connected by marriage with Henry VII., suffered death for supporting his claims. The Duchess of Burgundy, the sister of the late King, received him as her nephew with all honour. Now, I would ask, is it not possible that these two young men fled abroad, or were taken abroad, and that the bones found in the Tower were not those of the two Princes? We will now come to the battle of Bosworth Field and the death of Richard; and here, although surrounded on all sides by men whom he had made great, he saw one after the other turn against him, yet we find he fought his troops with determined bravery, and died, not until he had killed many, and was within an ace of killing Richmond himself. Could he have been the little crooked-back deformed lump of clay, as depicted by the writers of that day? We also know that he wore a heavy suit of armour, a fact, which significantly refutes the libel of his deformity. Take the authority of Hall, and the chroniclers, and we find that they all copy the first idea of Sir Thomas More. To sum up all that is said of him, "of body he was but low, crooked-back, hook-shouldered, splay-footed, and goggleeyed, his left arm withered from his birth; born a monster in nature, with all his teeth, hair on his head, and nails on his fingers and toes; and just in like manner was his mind." Now turn to the contemporary writers, men who knew him well, conversed with him, were consulted by him. William Wyrcester, Abbot of Whethamstede, Fleetwood, and Rous one of his enemies, all speak to the contrary, and say that he was a comely man, of great strength of body and mind, of great personal valour and determination, not the crooked-back creature represented by Shakspeare. And so I leave the question, by affirming that Richard the Third was not the cruel murderer, or cold-blooded villain, as given by many historians: but I admit that he was crafty and ambitious, and being desirous of leaving the throne to his son (who died at a very tender age), he plotted again and again for that which he never realised. [Note. For further particulars respecting Richard the Third and Bosworth Field, and also for some account of the famous "Blue Boar Inn," at Leicester, in connection with this subject, see the very interesting Report of the Proceedings of the British Archæological Association in that Nestor of our Serial Literature -the Gentleman's Magazine, Sept. and Oct. 1862, pp. 324-5, 434-7.-Edit.] THE PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKSPEARE. BY J. HARWOOD. To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, King John. EQUALLY ridiculous, it may be, each and every attempt to eulogise the sagacity, the judgment, and wisdom of the incomparable Shakspeare; but upon this, the eve of a great national festival consecrated to his memory, it is our privilege to stand, as it were, face to face with this giant of dramatic literature, and though I would not presume to pronounce his name apart from a deep reverence, the opportunity is fitting, nay, it is our bounden duty, to ask ourselves the question-How comes it that Shakspeare has so deeply affected the universal mind, that he, above all other writers, has enchained our sympathies-encircled our intellects-producing in return that responsive throb of tenderness, true sentiment, and lofty aspiration which has kept his memory green among us, and which will perpetuate that memory with increasing lustre throughout the countless ages of time? Bound by the definitive character of our programme, we are necessarily precluded from taking a comprehensive glance at the genius of Shakspeare: of recounting by What drugs, what charms, What conjurations, and what mighty magic But of this we may rest assured, that a careful study of his works will uplift the veil, disclosing as they do a code of ethics having the power to render mankind religiously wise, morally good, and intellectually great: in truth, the outline of a philosophy in consonance with natural and universal law-a philosophy founded on the possibilities of humanity, rather than the subtle dreamings of pseudo-moralists, or oracular mysticism. The literature of a nation is the ostensible repository of its knowledge. Knowledge, properly so called, is ascertained truth, such as when stated is true to all men, and true throughout all time. Knowledge, therefore, is the motive force of all intelligent action and right doing, while false conviction, which is knowledge in its way, leads to erroneous action. Truth, therefore, is the basis of all philosophy. Thus, then, there is knowledge, the determinate aim of which is religion, its object being God, and knowledge, the aim of which is morality, its object being self-respect, rightly conceived, and a conscientious respect for the rights of others; hence philosophy may be defined as a systematic body of true facts, which, producing right convictions, and right actions, results in mental elevation and true happiness. If, then, to know what we ought to do under any and every circumstance of life, be philosophy, positive in its character and unvarying in its aspirations, then may we claim for Shakspeare a most elevated position. From his works alone we may gather many maxims of consummate wisdom, and principles of universal import, applicable to all the circumstances of life, constituting a grand element in the charm which has attracted us in the direction of his wondrous genius. In a sense Shakspeare does not rank among our moral philosophers. His works lack an important, and yet an unimportant element-the systematic arrangement of ideas, or, perhaps, I ought the rather to say, principles.. But it was Shakspeare's prerogative to have the universal, of which his own personality was the unit; hence his philosophy is evolved through the media of character, and not epitomized by vexatious propositions. His mastery over his subject, was neither art, nor was it inspiration, unless by inspiration we mean soul-instinct. Nature from within, working by the imaginative powers, evolving its richest gems according to an idea, using his imagination (as Coleridge beautifully expresses it) as the handmaid of nature, and nature as the plaything of his imagination. As we ponder over the pages of Shakspeare, we are struck with the subtlety and profundity of his utterance; we feel that he is the master of a rich vein of philosophie truth, and whenever we generalize, we never omit to wreathe his brow with that most mysterious word, "philosopher." The glory of the ages, Shakspeare has defied the scrutiny of his critics. We devour the flashes of his humour and wit, sip the music of his imagery, shudder or thrill with exquisite torture or delight, as the case may be, at his wondrous delineation of character, but the man himself is a mysterywe feel an instinctive desire to understand the philosophy of the man, as well as the philosophy of his teaching. The philosophy deducible from Shakspeare-from the man and his works-is deeply tinctured with Platonism, and strikingly illustrative of the ideal theory, and the doctrine of intuition. In fact, Shakspeare, in his teachings, has pushed the Platonic theory to the fullest extent. With Shakspeare, as with Plato, good is the general law to which all mankind are attracted by nature, while moral disease is the result of mistaken views of real good. Within his subtle brain there floated grand and lofty conceptions his preternatural atmosphere is in positive antagonism to the spiritualism of religion-all that is most refined and ethereal-all that is most earthly and animal. By his intuitive insight, he has succeeded in animating nature by a perception of real affinities, which stamp his poetry with the most imposing forms and phenomena, tossing the creation like a bauble from hand to hand, in order to embody any and every capricious thought that was uppermost in his mind. "The Midsummer Night's Dream" and the “Tempest” are strikingly illustrative of this view, nor are these marvellous creations destitute of purpose and sound philosophical teaching-to quote his own words :The Poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, The forms of things unknown, the Poet's pen Midsummer Night's Dream, Act V. Scene 1. Thus starting from an idea, the creations of Shakspeare acquire a strength and pertinancy which carry all before them; and his philosophy in this respect is an open violation of that system which would reduce the whole theory of the mind to impressions, and which leaves its natural and its inherent impulses entirely out of the account. That Shakspeare has entered into no analysis of the Platonic theory of goodness and right doing, is undoubtedly true, but the spirit of Platonism is deeply interwoven throughout his Dramas. Especially may we trace it in his female characters-in Macbeth, Othello,-as, indeed, in [APRIL, 1864. every important character he has transfixed upon his page. Thus Othello, on the very eve of a fearful crime, apostrophises his slumbering victim Othello. It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul : It is the cause.-Yet I'll not shed her blood; Should I repent me:-but once put out thy light, I know not where is that Promethean heat That can thy light relume. When I have plucked the rose, It needs must wither:-I'll smell it on the tree, Act V. Scene 2. Thus, between his natural love of goodness, and the frenzy arising from a false conviction, the conflict of the man is full of most exquisite torture; and every reader of Shakspeare will recognise the truthfulness of the position I have assumed. But let us go a step further. "Shakspeare," says De Quincy," is among the modern luxuries of life-that life is a new thing, and more to be coveted, since he has extended the domain of human consciousness." In fact, the philosophy of Shakspeare, necessarily obscured by reason of its dramatic channels, has completely overridden Platonism, and, in a thousand instances, has scattered conventional morality into fragments. Here is the difference: Morality, so called, is made up of antipathies-Shakspeare's may be summed up in one word-" sympathy." The object of the pedantic moralist is to find out the bad in everything, and then to balance that bad by its corresponding virtue; while the object of Shakspeare was to show "that in things evil, there was some soul of goodness." The Greek philosophers erred in thinking the mass of mankind inferior to themselves in nature-they never rose above the conception of law as a restraint to ignorance and crime-their knowledge extended only to the point of pride, it never reached that altitude which converts it into love. In the system of Lycurgus, slavery was a recognised element. Even the pure-minded Socrates, who propounded the theory "that conscience was the inherent arbiter of right and wrong,' promulgated the maxim "that to injure an enemy was allowable," but in Shakspeare we have a breadth of sympathy of which love is the very essence. If he has painted man proud, ambitious, impulsive, and cruel, he has never made such men the types of true manhood; but by the rich vein of his intuitive insight, taking from life all that he found therein, and, supplying the rest, he has laid his moral basis in the possibilities of human nature, elevated to a divine standard,-in the conscious and intellectual soul, moved to action by principles, - subordinating the passion to the highest criteria of right-doing, or developing the same with conscious honesty and purity of purpose. In Shakspeare we find no justifiable incests—no laudable murders-no virtuous crimes. That he has made common cause with people of all conditions, is true; hence, he has allowed or prompted them to speak as their natures dictated, but in no one instance has he made their coarse utterances loveable. While therefore we sympathize with the Moor, we detest his crime-while we hate that demi-devil Iago, we pity him in his disappointments. Shylock himself, with all his fierce and ungovernable rage, moves us to commisseration in short, we recognise the universality of our Poet's philosophy The web of our lives is of a tangled yarn, Good and ill together. One of the most remarkable features in the genius of Shakspeare, is his philosophic insight into character: while his mastery of passion is something superhuman. From its infant throb, to its most violent outbursts-all that lies between the good and the bad-the strong and the weakhe has reproduced as though the experience of the universe were centered in his own personality. How he arrived at his conclusions is the great problem of his commentators. "Was it intuition, experience, or meditation? says Barry Cornwall but he has not ventured upon an answer. As it is the privilege of the Gleaner not only to pick up the scattered grain of knowledge, but also to distribute it, I am the more emboldened to promulgate a theory for your consideration. : دو It is a common notion, that History and Biography, is Philosophy teaching by example; and the marvel is how, when, and where, Shakspeare acquired his knowledge of men and manners. But Philosophy is a thing altogether apart from History and Biography. . As it is necessary to store up facts with the view to the discovery of principles as guides to human conduct, there is, undoubtedly, value in all such record. Natural facts are necessarily right, because they are the result of errorless intelligence; but the knowledge of the facts, is less important than the knowledge of the laws and principles which govern and produce them. We need not, for instance, make record of a shower of rain; but our knowledge of the principles on which this fact, and all similar facts, depend, should be recorded, lest the knowledge be lost. But with human facts -facts caused by human will-the case is different. These facts do not proceed from errorless intelligence, but from the fallible operations of human will, and are right or wrong just as they are rational or the reverse. Thus, Philosophy is a thing apart from History and Biography; and having the Philosophy, we might dispense with the latter, and thus save ourselves much profitless drudgery, because the knowledge which shows us whether an act already done he wrong or right, shows us at the same time what it is right or wrong to do; and however interesting the facts of History and Biography may be, they are (under such circumstances) of no real value, beyond the gratification they afford to our sympathies with the past. What more likely, then, that Shakspeare in his profound accuracy of thought, had stumbled upon principles, which, while they enabled him to grasp the minutest shades of individual character, also enabled him to dispense with the History and the Biography, as simply clogs to his imagination. I have said Shakspeare's mastery over his subject was neither art nor inspiration, but a knowledge of the connecting link between the intellect and the animal passions, and the more I study his Dramas, the more does this conviction become strengthened. There is not a character of any prominence in Shakspeare, which does not present the passions in juxtaposition with the intellect. The action, whether it be for good, or for evil, is in all instances a natural reflex of the mind. In the most violent outbursts of passion, we may trace the gradual overthrow of a healthy balance. Strikingly illustrative of the points in question, is the character of Iago: mark his speech to Roderigo. (You will remember Roderigo has proposed to drown himself.) Roderigo.-What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so fond; but it is not in Virtue to amend it. : Iago.-Virtue! a fig! 'tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners so that if we will plant nettles, or sow lettuce; set hyssop and weed up thyme; supply it with one gender of herbs, or distract it with many; either to have it steril with idleness, or manured with industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of this, lies in our wills. If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions. But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this that you call love to be a sect or scion. Roderigo. It cannot be. Iago. It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will. Come, be a man. Drown thyself! drown cats and blind puppies. Act I. Scene 3. While Shakspeare appears to recognise the mind as the source and centre of all moral and immoral action, he has also recognised a second great principle, namely, the inability of worldly greatness and all the selfish elements of civilization to produce real happiness. In this respect his philosophy is pre-eminently suggestive, with a breadth and catholicity which stamps him as the "morning-star" of true philosophy. Thus, in Henry the Fourth, Part II. Act IV. Scene. 4:How quickly nature falls into revolt When gold becomes her object! For this the foolish over-careful fathers For this they have engrossed and piléd up Our thighs packed with wax, our mouths with honey, Are murdered for our pains. Here then we have two great principles (or rather one, the second being subordinate to the first), at once the key to the genius of Shakspeare, as also the key to his philosophy. First, that the mind, or intellect, is the motive force of all moral or immoral action; and secondly, that civilization, with its recognised aspirations and standard of right doing is the very hot-bed of immorality. In many of his Dramas, from beginning to end, these principles are indissolubly interwoven. As a type, I have only to mention "Timon of Athens," so judiciously selected by Mr. Avery, and so aptly styled by Mr. Sherington, "a tragedy of the mind:” and I cannot escape the conviction, that within the circle of these two principles the whole of Shakspeare's characters are to be found. We talk about the universality of Shakspeare; well, what do we mean by this expression? Certainly not that he has depicted mankind in all their individual peculiarities. Shakspeare's Men and Women belong to no country but to humanity; but are we to draw no line between the gentle and loving Juliet, and the passionate and wicked Lady Macbeth? between the thoughtful and philosophical Hamlet and that blustering braggadocio, "full of wise saws," 16 Falstaff, this is certainly not the meaning. So unlike are the characters of our great Poet, that it is generally agreed, that to attempt to make one utter the speeches of another, would be to destroy their personality altogether. No, the universality of Shakspeare's characters consists in their fitness-in that balance of passion with intellect: hence, to produce a character, was first to take an intellectual standpoint, and then, dovetailing, as it were, all those natural passions which lie within the circle of its possibilities, either in subjection or dominance, and to sustain the unity of the whole. This is a feat which none but Shakspeare has ever accomplished because none but Shakspeare has had the key. With such a key as I have intimated, the characters of Shakspeare are indeed universal and intelligible: and the author's thought at once becomes a part and parcel of our own personality. We trace in them the blood of our common humanity: the passions, the aspirations, have a responsive throb in our own souls-hence, he is the glory of the age, and the Poet of all time. Give to a subtle man, says Coleridge, fancy, and he is a wit; to a deep man, imagination, and he is a philosopher. Add again pleasurable sensibility, in the threefold form of sympathy, with the interesting in morals, the impressive in form, and the harmonious in sound, and you have the Poet. But combine all-subtlety, wit, fancy-with profundity, imagination, and moral and physical susceptibility of the pleasurable, and let the object be man universal, and we shall have-say rather we have-a SHAKSPEARE. SHAKSPEARE'S SUBLIME LANGUAGE. BY H. WEBSTER. IN selecting the sublime language of Shakspeare for my reading on this important occasion, I have to express my admiration at the great depth of thought and beautiful imagery to be found throughout the writings of our matchless Bard. In a few words, ingeniously, yet eloquently placed together, he gives expression to many exquisite similies, pervaded by grand, philosophical, and moral teaching. As illustrations I beg to read a few extracts, and amongst others, Ophelia's lamentation at the supposed madness of Hamlet : Ophelia.-O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword: The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, The observed of all observers! quite, quite down! That sucked the honey of his music vows, To have seen what I have seen, see what I see! And again, an extract from Cymbeline, that sweetly pretty and pathetic scene, wherein Fidele is supposed to have been discovered dead in the cave:Arviragus. The bird is dead That we have made so much on. I had rather Have skipped from sixteen years of age to sixty, To have turned my leaping time into a crutch, Than have seen this. Guiderius. O sweetest, fairest lily! My brother wears thee not the one half so well, As when thou grew'st thyself. Belarius. * O, melancholy! How found you him? Arviragus. Stark, as you see : Thus smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber, Guiderius.Arviragus. O' the floor; His arms thus leagued. I thought he slept; and put My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rudeness Answered my steps too loud. Guiderius. Why, he but sleeps: If he be gone, he'll make his grave a bed; Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, * * * * * Yea, and furred moss besides, when flowers are none, How delicately and how well could Shakspeare touch the springs of sympathy and awaken tenderness! The pathos of the scene tears alone can speak: the childlike simplicity of the love borne by the two noble-minded youths (Arviragus and Guiderius) for their new companion, and their grief at his death, expressed in so quiet and sweet a style, I consider a master-piece of sublime writing. In "Measure for Measure," is also an exquisite aphorism: If He, which is the top of judgment, should : Amongst the many splendid passages so profusely scat- Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, And this our life, exempt from public haunt, The foregoing short speech of the noble exile, of itself comprises a fine and eloquent moral lesson, and is rich in beautiful truths, each line containing almost a sermon; and the whole forming a volume of pure sentiment, which, the more it is read and re-read, the more brilliant it appears to us. It teaches us to know the Deity through the light of nature, and to recognize a kindly teaching in what too many are apt to regard as evils: it persuades us to cast aside all vindictive feeling, and to see much to live for in this beautiful world. THE POEMS OF SHAKSPEARE. BY J. WEEVIL. THE Poems of Shakspeare in which we must look for the qualities of Shakspeare's poetry in their fullest and most glorious development are his great dramas. In his undramatic works, conventionally called "the Poems," to distinguish them from that other and better known body of poetry on which his genius impressed the dramatic form -although in these are to be found, in a high degree, his peculiar insight into human nature, his power of portraying it, his wondrous wealth of thought and imagery, his vast mastery of language, his exquisite beauty of expression, consummate skill in versification, and masterly constructive art-it must be admitted that they exist in a much lower degree, and, as it were, germs and presentiments of the luxuriant fragrance and beauty that unfolded themselves in his maturer productions. Of these the Sonnets, apart from their poetic merits, are peculiarly deserving of a critical study, for this, if for no other reason, that they are the only works of the Poet that we know of in which he has, in a direct form, uttered his own sentiments and feelings, and they are therefore extremely valuable as one, if not the only key, he has left us for obtaining admission to a view of the inmost workings and processes of his wonderful intellect. The limits imposed on us, however forbid anything like an attempt even to enter on their consideration, and for the same reason, we must confine ourselves, and that most briefly, to the two poems of "Venus and Adonis," and the "Rape of Lucrece." The "Venus and Adonis," which the Poet in his dedication calls "the first heir of his invention," is certainly a very early if not youthful production. It was evidently intended for publication, and hence Shakspeare bestowed upon it a fond care and preparation, a completeness of literary finish, which contrasts strikingly with the carelessness he apparently felt for the fate of his dramas after representation, for which alone he seems to have intended them. This circumstance of its being intended for publication, may account for the selection of a subject from the old Greek mythology by a poet so intensely English as Shakspeare. In his Dramas intended to be acted and not read, Shakspeare addressed a public that all but completely represented the contemporary English people, and therefore selected from familiar sources subjects of the widest range of appeal to the intensest sympathies common alike to the cultured and the unlettered in his audience. On the other hand in a poem that would be read and not acted, he appeals to the reading portion of the public only-then a most restricted circle indeed-of whose culture the literature of Greece and Rome formed not merely the basis, but the entire superstructure, having indeed as yet nothing in nature and modern literature to compete with it. Shakspeare has departed widely from the old classical myth he has selected. Nothing could be farther from any old Greek's conception of Aphoridite than the Venus of Shakspeare. The myth symbolically expresses the Greek's perception of the ineffable, and as it appeared to him, divine beauty, that came and went with the youthful, and alas! shortlived vernal season, and which he would have eternally wedded together. He expressed a like feeling of the nameless and terrible pomp and charm of war, by allying the goddess of beauty to Mars, and of the inimitable grace that his countrymen impressed on even the meanest of their industrial produce, by making her the wife of Vulcan. Not a thought of this appears present in our Poet's mind. To him Venus is a woman, and nothing more: he has depicted her all a-flame with human love-love run riot, blazing out in uncontrollable frenzy of animal desire, scorning all check of feminine reserve-of inherent modesty-in the pursuit of a lawless gratification-without a thought of shame. Herein Shakspeare has not only deviated from the Greek conception of Venus, which he might legitimately do from his very different stand-point, but he has undeniably sinned against the principles of the truest art. Love is the most poetic of the passions; but the poetry resides in the sentiment, not in the senses. Of course the senses play a part, and an indispensable part in the "old, old story." They impart a quality, a warmth, a tone, and a colour to the sentiment, without which it would not be love. But it is only in this quickened current given to the feeling by the senses that the real artist at all recognises the influence of the latter, in his representation of love. The workings of sensual desirethe most repulsive phase through which love passes-are carefully kept out of sight; and an elaborate picture of amative feeling seeking for a gratification ever denied to it, cannot, by the most lavish employment of art, be made attractive, or otherwise than most offensive and disgusting. This censure is based exclusively on the principles of art, quite independently of the moral question that is involved. Shakspeare must be acquitted of all vicious intention. The picture is a bonâ fide portrayal of human passion, without any ulterior aim. In the second part of the Poem, when Venus wanders through the forest in anxious search of Adonis, and finds his dead body lacerated by the boar-where she passes from the lower region of mere animal desire, into the loftier one of sentiment-the Poem rises likewise in dignity and general beauty. The alternations of hope and fear, the wild and prostrating grief that crushes her, when the reality of his death breaks upon her, are finely drawn. Whatever the faults of this Poem it contains passages equal to any in his greater works, which show how keenly, profoundly, and lovingly Shakspeare observed nature. The description of the horse, of the hare, of the sunrise, not to notice others, have all the freshness, clearness of outline, vivid picturesqueness of colouring, and minute fidelity to truth, which an original and deeply sympathetic converse with nature could alone have produced. The Legendary Period of the History of Rome furnishes the subject of the Poem of the "Rape of Lucrece." The theme here is one of greatly more dramatic interest than the "Venus and Adonis," and its treatment exhibits a great advance in poetic power. There was evidently a considerable interval between the production of the two Poems. The Poet, in delineating the movements of human passion, throws in the touches of his pencil with a surer hand-his domain of thought is greatly extended and enriched-his command of language, and the resources of versification greatly increased. Here, as in the "Venus and Adonis," the narrative turns upon unlicensed love, with the difference that its force is displayed in a man. Here again the current of animal desire in full sway, sweeping away all the restraints of conscience, of friendship, of princely honour, and the most powerful dissuasives of private and public interests, is |