ridicule; quelques-uns d'une instabilité désolante pour leur instruction, quelques autres d'une application opiniâtre à ce qu'ils entreprennoient, mais sans fixité; plusieurs vétilleux minutieux, craintifs, timides, irresolus; presque tous avoient eu une grande activité de facultés intellectuelles et morales qui avoient redoublés d'énergie quelque temps avant l'acces; la plupart avoient eu des maux des nerfs; les femmes avoient épreuves des convulsions ou de spasmes hysteriques; les hommes avoient été sujets à des crampes, des palpitations, des paralysies. Avec ces dispositions primitives ou acquises, il ne manque plus qu'une affection morale pour déterminer l'explosion de la fureur ou l'accablement de la melancolie."

Now, in all Shakespeare's insane characters, however slight may be the mental malady, with the exception only of Hamlet, we have accurately described to us the temperament on which madness is ingrafted. Thus of Malvolio, who, on his introduction to us, shows the intolerant vulgarity and impertinence of the upstart, combined with the wisdom of the menial—with cunning at least -and the chattering of proverbs, gravely on occasion, we hear from Maria: "The devil a puritan that he is, or any thing constantly, but a time-pleaser an affectioned ass, that cons state without book, and utters it by great swarths: the best persuaded of himself. so crammed, as he thinks, with excellences, that it is his ground, of faith that all that look on him love him: and on that vice in him will my revenge find notable cause to work." And from this we can well see how little provocation it required to drive him beside himself, and into that most contemptible alienation of mind which springs from inordinate vanity and sordid selfishness. Of Jacques we learn that he had been a debauchee, as sensual as the brutish sting itself." He is satiated quite—is now naturally enough struck with a gentle melancholy—“with a most humorous sadness." Goneril, too, prepares us for Lear's madness: "The best and soundest of his time has been but rash; then must we look to receive from his age, not alone the imperfections of long-ingrafted condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them." But of Hamlet alone we have no account of any positive predisposing cause to mania, or faulty temperament; nor can we catch

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from the lips of any third person any thing which might lead us to question his sanity before the commencement of the play. All is to his praise. He is the esteemed of Fortinbras, the friend of Horatio, the beloved of Ophelia. We are abruptly brought to contemplate the noble nature warped, the lofty mind o'erthrown, the gentleman "in his blown youth blasted with ecstacy." To comprehend and account for this, we must study the drama with the same pervading sweep of thought that we would passages in human life, occurring within our observation, from which we wished to wring a meaning, and by which we hoped to solve a mystery. There is nothing beyond to look to. We must judge Hamlet by what he said and did: I open the volume in which this is recorded.*

* Properly speaking, this character of Hamlet belongs to, and should have appeared in "The Shakespeare Papers." It was omitted, by inadvertence.-M.

AGNEWIDOS.

LIBER I.*

ΑΝΔΡΑ μοι εννεπε, Μουσα, πολύτροπον Κ. τ. λ.—HOMER.

"Castiliano volto: for here comes Sir Andrew Ague-face." SHAKESPEARE, Twelfth Night, Act I. sc. iii.

"Auf das Unrecht, da folgt das Uebel,
Wie die Thrän' auf den herben Zwiebel,
Hinter dem U kommt gleich das Weh,
Das ist die Ordnumg im A, B, C.
Ubi erit victoriæ spes,

Si offenditur Deus? Wie soll man siegen,
Wenn man die Predigt schwänzt und die Mefs,
Nichts thut, als in den Weinhäusern liegen?"

SCHILLER, Camp of Wallenstein, sc. viii.

"Versibus ornari tragicis res comica non vult."-HORACE.

*No more than this portion of an eccentric and amusing satire on Sir Andrew and the meeting in favor of his Sabbath-breaking bill was published. It appeared in Fraser for May, 1836. Sir Andrew was a fanatic Scotch Baronet, of much zeal and large income, who, in and out of Parliament, agitated fiercely for new and stringent laws to enforce the strictest observance of the Sabbath.-M.

"Apre l' uomo infelice allor che nasce

In questa vita di miserie piena

Prià ch'al sol, gli occhi al pianto; e nato appena
Va prigionier frà le tenace fasce."-Sonetto del Marini.

"When people first their eyes unclose

Upon this world of grief and twaddling,
They are predoomed to various woes
Beginning in their swaddling clothes,

And ending in a close of swaddling."

BARRY CORNWALL.

"Il faut passer la manche

Pour voir mes amis comme on garde un dimanche."-DR. Bowring.

"Churches and steeples he'd gobble up

(He used to come of a Sunday);

Whole congregations were to him

But a dish of Salmagundi."-PERCY's Reliques.

SUNDAY virumque cano, quo non atrocior unquam,
Verily do thinko, terris apparuit humbug.
Est infernal enim Scotchman, cordesque per omnes
Vult strikare metum, rigido pius ore locutus,

Quo minus on Sunday meat-pies hottosque voremus

Puddings. Multum ille à young folks detested et old folks,
Multa quoque et risu passus dum addresseret Housam,
Inferretque simul Billam, sermone lugubri.

Musa mihi causas memora, what members abetting,
Quidve volens animis Commons, tot pullere faces
Insignem nihilo numskull, tot makere speeches
Twango infernali, quid tot propoundere billas,
Permittat. Tantum superest parl❜mentary leisure?
Est domus Antiquo Yardo,* Westminster ad aulam
Spectans, quam plures ipso coluisse feruntur
Bellamy posthabito. Siquid contenditur, utrùm
Whig vel Tory majus valeat pecus, aidere viewas
Quo meliùs possint domus hæc Radlœia semper
Accipit hospitio.† Hic meetings pro talibus objects
Holdendi, hic proprium sanctum, huc concurritur always.

* Palace Yard, in front of Westminster Hall.—M.

↑ Radley's Hotel, Bridge St., Blackfriars.-M.

Jamque dies aderat. Venientes undique circúm
Long-faced sleek homines vidit Radlœius hospes.
Undique venerunt-Agnewia turba - viamque
Totam complerunt loudæis sighibus atque
Sobbibus. Haud aliter taurorum Althorpia sœcla
Belloware solent inter jucunda vireta,

Dozantemque vocant dominum, subque arbore somnos
Rumpunt; tantus erat venientûm singular hubbub.
Nunc simul atque fores Family panduntur Hotelli,
Intravere omnes members, sedesque tenebant,
Fleetwoodque, et Plumptree, et vultu Stanley severo,
Plagiary Baines,* sanctusque Trevor, sanctusque Sir Oswald.t
Quin subitò extremâ surgit de parte roomæ

Slight murmur, strepitus qui mox effertur ad outright.
"En venit ille! venit dominus sanctissimus Agnew,
En venit ille, deus nobis qui hoc otia fecit!"

Conclamant omnes, thumpuntque outrageously mensas.
Ille autem upturnans oculos, tacitusque per aulam
Incedens Baronet, solium petit, agmine certo

Mox cum consurgens animis virtute severâ
Tristes cuique viro corners demiserat oris
Verus amor patriæ, junctis palmisque genisque,

Clearat thoracem genitor; - dein talia fatur.

"O gentlemeni, rerumque hominumque magister

Quum vocat, et dignum qui jam committee præessem

Me putat esse suæ tanto renuare favori

Haud possum ; nec enim, quod dat Deus ipse, gravandum est

Officium; tamen in meliores displicet olim

Non cecidisse manus. O sirs, me percutit horror

Quo me cunque fero-furor, indignatio, amazement,
Ut circumspicio et nostris de moribus ævi

Considero. O gentlemenni, me percutit utmost
Woe, gravis et concern, spectantem tempora nostra.
Quis nescit pietatis enim, Lordisque diei,

Contemptum penitus cultum? Quis nescit ad ipsum
Adproperare Devil as fast as possible all things?

* Sic audit apud Cobbettum passim: idem apud eundem the Great Liar of the North sæpe sonat. Extat Register defuncti senis posteritati perutile monumentum. [Edward Baines, then M. P. for Leeds, had incurred Cobbett's anger, as Editor of the Leeds Mercury.-M.]

† Members of Parliament, who supported Sir A. Agnew's Sabbatharian movements. Sir Oswald Mosley was ground-landlord of a large portion of what was then the borough and is now the cotton-spinning city of Manchester.-M.