pearl of generous and noble sentiment, worthy to be treasured in our minds, and worn in our social converse. Here is virtually the divine lesson of Charity, which, instead of dwelling upon the failings and demerits of others, lets the rain of its favours fall even on the undeserving and ungrateful, deems it "more blessed to give than to receive," loves even an enemy, and "overcomes evil with good." Not content with mere forbearance towards those whose faults merited harshness, the gentle and magnanimous Prince, in whom we may recognise the Poet himself personified, recommends us to show that heroic prodigality of nature, ambition of excellence, which says, "The less their merit, the more merit in bounty to them." So truly may the Great Dramatist be said to moralize amidst his mirthment, and preach amidst his playfulness. But while instruction tinctures his gaiety, it pervades his seriousness. In a memoir of the late Rev. Robert Anderson, of Brighton, highly revered for his piety and usefulness, it is noted, that to the end of his life, he delighted in finding passages of Shakspeare that witnessed to the glory of God. Nothing more easy than from his pages to compile a book of shrewd remarks, and valuable sentences, enforced on memory by the most original, picturesque, and energetic expressions; a refreshing contrast to the "weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable iterations of modern common-place." And, while he surrounds us with all sorts of speakers, and sentiments, it is to be understood, as a thing of course, that he means only his wise and virtuous meanings.* Amidst "the busy hum" of voices, his own is * After all that has been written on this great favourite of Nature, I cannot pretend to place another wreath upon his brow. On no individual genius has criticism or panegyric so completely exhausted its powers. If the noble Preface of Johnson be deficient in that strain of enraptured admiration which a more poetical mind would indulge, the deficiency has been splendidly supplied by an article by Jeffery, in the Edinburgh Review, on Hazlitt's Characters of Shakspeare. I cannot but think those excellent people mistaken, who regard our Great Dramatist as a pernicious writer, calculated to corrupt the principles and inflame the passions. He shows the world as he saw it, with all its light and darkness, its good and evil characters and actions, like an honest, impartial, all-observing, B to be heard ever and anon uttering sentiments "of a higher mood," in loftier language than the rest. How evidently is he in earnest, and with what a tone of sweet or solemn eloquence does he speak,-whenever, in his onward career he pauses for a few moments, and without effort or design, upon some serious, perhaps even upon some sacred theme! Never does he deliver himself so masterly, as when some high and holy thought calls forth his conscience, and his heart. It were easier to begin, than to end, a series of illustrative quotations: they gild his pages, thick, and bright, and irregularly scattered, as the stars of heaven. In Hamlet and Lear, they cluster and sparkle like constellations. Who can doubt, for instance, that Shakspeare looked into the depth of his ample mind, and drew up thence those gems of bright reflection, which he presents in the famed soliloquy, in which Hamlet, yearning after escape from life, restrains himself from the act of suicide, by the apprehension of "something after death?" Who can forget how finely poor old Lear preaches to the raging elements, and makes them preach to the reader? What a memento of duty, those words of the storm-beaten King :· : "Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, That thou may'st shake the superflux to them, In "Measure for Measure," one of the most deepthoughted, and heart-exploring dramas, I cannot but recollect and all-recording spectator: "nothing he extenuates, nor sets down aught in malice." Whatever is wicked in his pages appears to be written in his dramatic character, not con amore: it is chiefly in his noblest sentiments (and these are numberless) that he speaks in his own person. He does not breathe the malignity of a Byron, or the licentiousness of a Moore. and produce those pious and pathetic lines, from the dialogue between Isabel.and Duke Angelo : :- "Alas! alas ! Why all the souls that are, were forfeit once; Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, Than the soft myrtle! Oh, but man, proud man, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, But I dare not indulge in selected passages; which, after all, would be only (as Johnson has represented it) like producing a few stones, as specimens of some noble edifice, to which they belonged. Having once more mentioned Johnson, let me warmly commend the perusal of his Preface, which may be pronounced one of the most finished, and most majestic compositions in the literature of English prose,—and which eloquently attests how highly the moral Sage appreciated the moral, as well as the dramatic, merit of this mighty Poet. So variously admirable are the Plays of Shakspeare, that while it is not difficult to discriminate the characteristic excellence of each, it is not easy to arrange several of the more eminent pieces in the order of merit, or assign to each its appropriate place, on grounds on which the majority of his admirers would coincide. To circumscribe the competition within its narrowest compass; we may select the four tragedies, Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, Othello, as four rivals of acknowledged preeminence.* Of these, each has its own especial votaries. * The Dramas of Shakspeare, which have usually been distinguished as Comedies, Histories, or Tragedies, may, I think, be more naturally distributed into two classes, as either Romantic or Historic; the one class, in some pieces, so blended Campbell awards the palm to Macbeth; Hazlitt to Lear; Johnson to Othello ;-were the votes of any mixed assembly to be taken, the majority would, in all probability, be found in favour of Macbeth. Its hurry and its horror render it more rapid, and more mighty, in its effect on the multitude, than the comparatively calm and pensive Hamlet. It is indeed a stupendous Tragedy! For myself, after several oscillations of preference, during the perusals of past years, I am disposed to acquiesce finally in the opinion of those, who with Goethe, Schlegel, and Coleridge, find their favourite in the Prince of Denmark. The commanding superiority of these four Tragedies, arises principally from this, that each contains a prolonged, and powerful exhibition of one master passion, as embodied in the leading personage: the tyranny of self-destroying ambition, and the tremendous acceleration of guilt, in Macbeth; the agonies of parental sensibility to filial ingratitude, in Lear; in Othello, the dreadful effects of conjugal jealousy; while Hamlet, a character less strongly defined, more complex, and profound than any of the others, developes the working of a mind, lofty in contemplation, but listless in action; a fine, but an irresolute, and melancholy spirit; keenly sensitive to the touches of conscience, and the calls of duty, but dilatory and vacillating in performance. Hazlitt thus discriminates these four unrivalled dramas; Macbeth stands foremost in wildness of imagination, and rapidity of action; Lear, in intensity of pathos; Othello, in progressive interest of one mighty feeling; Hamlet, in the refined developement of thought and sentiment. with the other, that they may be termed historically-romantic Dramas. To the reader of deep poetic sensibility, the least interesting class is that of the purely historic plays. Of the blended class are those most splendid and celebrated of his productions,-Macbeth, Hamlet, Lear, and Othello. But the most beautiful and delightful passages, those to which we most naturally recur as our congenial favourites, are to be found, I think, in the purely romantic Dramas: such as The Tempest, Cymbeline, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, &c. These contain passages which for tender sweetness or picturesque beauty, we should reluctantly exchange for those dazzling coruscations of genius which irradiate the dramas of a more heroic and ambitious character. In each of these great tragedies, the moral lesson is not less prominently or powerfully displayed, than the central personage, in whom it is embodied; and thus the moral interest is essentially interwoven and commensurate with the dramatic. To thousands, who would listen to no professional preacher, how effectively has Macbeth presented the torments and the horrors of a conscience foul with blood! Who shall say how many a "thought, whose murder yet was but fantastical," may have been appalled and expelled by the ghost of Banquo, shaking his gory locks at his murderer, amidst the banquet? Has the odiousness of filial ingratitude ever been painted with such dreadful power to the view of our daughters, as in the marble-hearted, wolf-eyed, and detested Goneril and Regan? Can the malignity, meanness, mischief, of slander, or the defamation of a virtuous character,—(one of the most pestilent evils that can poison the peace of domestic life, and social intercourse,) be placed in a stronger light than in the viper-like, fiend-like Iago? Budgell, the unfortunate friend of Addison, affected to justify his act of suicide, by a posthumous appeal to Cato's soliloquy; who can say that the suicidal purpose has never been turned aside by the awful soliloquy of Hamlet? In the conduct of the story, Hamlet is strikingly contrasted with Macbeth. In the last, there is a continual urgency and precipitation of events toward the crisis and climax of the horrors:-in Hamlet, all is indecision and delay. This contrast, as I remember, was vividly illustrated by Coleridge, in a Lecture, (the only one I had the felicity of hearing from his lips,) delivered at the White Lion Inn, Bristol, at the close of 1813. In the notes of that Lecture, as published among his Literary Remains," I find his own words: "The tragedy of Hamlet proceeds with the utmost slowness; that of Macbeth with a breathless and crowded rapidity." Not less striking is the contrast between these two unrivalled tragedies, in respect to the general character of their contents: Macbeth being marked by horror in action; Hamlet by solemnity in sentiment. Among the Plays of Shakspeare, HAMLET is distinguished as that one in which he most largely displays his acquaintance |