ment, every look conveyed.

Suffice it to say, I was scarcely ever from

her side, whether riding or walking, and without her no company could be endurable. I was alike insensible to the attentions of father, mother, and brother, except I could watch her loved form, and listen to the sweet accents of her voice. But the enemy Time will not suffer the moments of bliss to linger at man's will, and I soon found the period for my departure draw near. Yet I could not depart without making some declaration of the passion which was burning in my breast; and an opportunity soon offered itself. It was in the afternoon of the day which was destined to be my last in those enchanting regions, that we were walking alone by the stream, conversing lightly on the topics of the day, when large drops of rain began to fall, and we hastened to take refuge in a rude kind of arbour from the violence of the storm. She on her rustic seat watched the blue and foaming stream, and the birch trees dripping from the waters of heaven, and quivering in the sunset air. An expression of tranquil bliss suffused her beautiful brow, and spoke from the thrilling tenderness of her soft blue eye. I gazed on that countenance with flushed cheek, and a glance of entranced rapture. She turned her head, and met my glance, and troubled, withdrew her own. "Ellen, dearest Ellen, let me call you mine-only say you love me." Her cheek flushed, her whole frame seemed agitated, and her lips moved in a murmuring response.

"All right for chapel this morning,-chapel, sir,-chapel."

NON SEMPER DORMIO.

AGE.

Lo! man's strong frame has felt the hand of Time,
The ponderous weight which bows the body low;

As once in youth, no longer thoughts sublime
Now check the pulse, or bid it quicker flow.

The dull, thick stream, with slow and tardy pace,
Flows through the veins, nor glows the pallid cheek;
The furrowed brow, the pale, the care-worn face

Of suffering age, th' attending evils speak.

The tottering gait, the weak and husky voice,
The palsied limbs, the lustre-lacking eye,
Mark man's decay ;—then, tyrant Time, rejoice!

For all with Nature's last, eternal, law comply.

G**

ON SOME OF THE CLOWNS OF SHAKESPEAR.

I.

FESTO, THE CLOWN IN TWELFTH NIGHT.

"This fellow's wise enough to play the fool,

And to do that well craves a kind of wit;

He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons, and the time."

TWELFTH NIGHT, ACT III. SCENE I.

ENDUED beyond any man who ever wrote, with the power of setting forth Truth in all her shapes, the mind of Shakespear has thrown great force into characters of a witty description, Such characters are introduced in every phase of mental peculiarity, every form of temporal circumstance. More especially, however, in the position in which they were most familiar to him and the public of his day-that of licensed dependents in the houses of the great. These auxiliaries to the pleasures of the rich and idle appear to have been generally a little touched in their intellects, on which account they enjoyed an indemnity from personal consequences, which enabled them to have all the pleasure of saying rude things without the fear of suffering a coarse retaliation. Thus they possessed great advantages over the dinner-table wits of later days, who, though they may live by the display of their humour, are obliged to use some caution in exercising it.

Having said thus much on the general aspect of this group of Shakespear's characters, we will proceed to the specimen more immediately under our notice.

In considering the character of Festo, it will be simpler to trace the development of his character by the succeeding scenes of the drama, and then endeavour to form a general estimate of what sort of person the author meant to give us the impression.

We first make the acquaintance of this personage in the fifth scene of the first act, after a temporary absence, it would appear, without the slightest permission. His tone at once declares itself. He trifles with Maria, and pretends to be coining excuses for his absence. But the instant his gracious lady enters, he falls into her state of mind, and not a word is heard of the excuses we expected from his lips. His first remark is, it must be admitted, a simple one," God bless thee, lady!"

"OLI. Take the fool away!"

In addition to her old sorrow for the loss of her brother, Olivia has

now another, in the ceaseless and pertinacious addresses of the Duke. She seems, therefore, but little disposed for fooling. But the clown knows with whom he has to deal; and this we shall hereafter find to be one of his great characteristics. He accordingly answers

"Do you not hear, fellows, take away my lady."

And then artfully attempts to laugh her out of her sadness by his humorous illustrations. In all this there is great intention. We see throughout the whole scene considerable knowledge of men, veiled under buffoonery of a very witty description. He seems to joke as if he had nothing else to do; yet examination shews us that this wit and humour are only secondary. Like Rabelais, he amuses the profane by his fun, while his deeper meaning is conveyed to kindred souls alone. He possesses, like Hamlet, one of those minds (often considered secondrate) which, lacking the energy to act their thoughts,-nay often to express them intelligibly-are yet so fitted by nature, and trained by habit, to the instant perception and digestion of truth, that when they do speak, it always means somethiug. Very thoughtful writers are apt to introduce a character of this sort. Ben Jonson, in "Every Man in his Humour," has a character-Master Pyeboard, the Scholar;-who, though a great rascal, has some touch of this; and is, further, in an amiable stage of cynicism. This is precisely the case with Festo. Like all minds so constituted, he is incomplete without a different, but corresponding mind, to receive his ideas: and consequently, when he wants this lid to his own cup, he is led to despise and disparage less appreciative company. This is the extent of his misanthropy. When, in the third scene of the second act, he is brought into collision with Sir Andrew Agueback, he falls into the grossest buffoonery, and even nonsense; and all the time with a sort of implied contempt, obvious enough to all but its object.

"Thou wast in excellent fooling," says the knight, "when thou spakest of Pigromitus, of the Vapians passing the equinox of Queubus." The way in which Festo receives his praise, and the accompanying "gratility," is as much as to say: "Such coarse stuff will do for you, who expect nothing else from a fool but fooling, or from a sage but wisdom." Throughout his whole proccedings, will be traced this art of suiting his conversation to his company.

"The melancholy Jaques" is the most perfect specimen of this class of minds-a class to which, if we can fix down the Proteus at all, our versatile author appears to have belonged.

Our Fool does not seem to mind his epigrammatic fallacies being exposed. He at once disarms criticism, by agreeing with the objection, and assisting in running down the obnoxious remark. An instance of

this will be found in his behaviour to Viola in the first scene of the third Act. He makes a flippant remark on being asked whether he lived by music. His answer is-" No, Sir, I live by the Church, for I do live at mine house, and mine house doth stand by the Church."

Viola objects to this joke in the coldest possible spirit, upon which our Clown merely replies-"You have said, Sir, to see this age!—a sentence is but as a cheveril glove to a good wit, how quickly the wrong side may be turned outwards."

He has a sort of massive dignity, where speaking of himself, which is truly amusing, and seems to have the power of dividing himself in two ; and, either in the character of the inferior member doing homage to the might of the other, or adopting the stately vein to rebuke the folly of the subordinate organization. So when the Duke praises his singing, and offers him money, he answers, "I take a pleasure in singing." How quickly and how truely he takes up Sir Toby's cue of insult to Malvolio on his interruption of their carouse. But even here, as if only for himself, his thoughtfulness breaks out. Sir Toby sings

"But I will never die !"

How quick and sly is Festo's answer: "Sir Toby, there you lie." That whole scene is well worth a careful perusal.

The dignified vein we have noticed seems common to all deranged intellects. All who have (as the Scotch say) a bee in the bonnet, seem more or less to indulge in this species of self delusion. This is frequently brought before us in the character of the Fool. When putting on the gown in which he is to enact the parson, he asks with childish selfimportance, how he looks? (Act iv. sc. 2.) In the remarkable scene which follows, he appears at a disadvantage. His playful sarcasm fails to please us as much as the earnest warmth of the much-abused steward.

Cl. What was the opinion of Pythagoras about wild fowl?
Mal. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.
Cl.-What thinkest thou of his opinion?

Mal.-I think nobly of the soul, and noway approve his opinion.

A little below the Clown gives us himself the key to what we have seen of his versatility of mind:

"Nay, I am for all waters."

In the very next scene he so completely changes his manner and tone of mind as to supply to the imagination the putting off of the gown and the false voice.

One further peculiarity of his erratic mind is to be found in his glorious inconsequences, not always entirely assumed-for he appears to be

incapable of following one thought long-and not always so inconsequent as they seem, as in the song at the end of the play, The sentiment

"But when I came to man's estate,

With heyho the wind and the rain,

'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
For the rain it raineth every day,"

seems to us as magnificently incoherent as the sign seen by the late James Smith, in Bohemia, which was to this effect:

"Put your trust in God, for

this is the black Boar."

Such, then, appears to have been the character Shakespear wished to delineate. The description of his own mind given by Dryden will be almost the best in which we could give, in brief, our impressions of Festo. "All the images of nature," says this able critic, present with him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily."

were still

AN EVENING THOUGHT.

SHALL we not dream of happy days,
Spent on this earth below;

When far beyond those distant clouds
That with the sunset glow.

Oh! methinks the sweet remembrance
Of those that most we prize,

Too bright-too innocent a thing,

To perish in the skies.

Pure love shall then engage the heart,

High energies the mind,

No sad and thoughtful memories

To bid us look behind;

Yet wholly may not pass from us
The vision of this earth-
Where we are living-where we die,
Which first beheld our birth!

The sweet communion of the friend

Seems typical of love,

Which shall delight our perfect soul,

E'en in the realms above.

And we may hope that though in Heaven

All earth-born troubles flee,

The blessed hours with friends we love

Will still remembered be.

NO. XI.-VOL, III.

2 S