as reproaches, or even as the narrations of fact do in men's minds, the more terrible and emphatic in words the more the speaker may try to qualify them. The welcome indulgence of passion was in the killing of the supposed king, and in the comparison of the two brothers. Nothing could be more tender or pathetic than the promise to "beg blessings " when the queen should be "desirous to be blessed." There was reconciliation for two worlds in it. In a word, the actor's taste brought out all that is noble, elevated, tender, and kindly, as the habits of the character, and put upon these all that could contrast with them, as the uncongenial accidents of his fate. I always welcome the gravediggers with their well-assorted argument; their trade-talk of death, which is the best sermon upon it; their "houses which last till doomsday." They enforce the terror in the lesser sense and disarm it in the greater. Suffice it that my clowns were natural and unconscious ones, which is the task the poet has set them. And Osric, the comic quintessence of the courtier class of the characters, played his part only with superior earnestness and amusing dotage on nothings. Lords in waiting and gentleman ushers are really very droll in their inanity, but if they were pretentious buffoons they would be kicked out. Their merit is an exceeding solemnity, an incapability of the ludicrous, which makes them as ridiculous as the gravest of all four-footed animals. Where a smile or a frown is promotion or disgrace, luxury or beggary, the observation of the royal countenance is a most serious occupation. A vivacious absurdity from such a person! Make him guilty of high treason at once! High treason it would be against the mystery of kingcraft. How finely did this cringing over-servile thing contrast with the placid, equal Horatio! You have said nothing of Ophelia and Laertes. No! They are a family portrait and should always be considered together. The characteristic of each is exceeding sensitiveness. Ophelia, as I saw her represented, hid hers as a girl does to make it the stronger by the suppression when she might indulge it; shew as timid, conscious at first, recklessly woe-begone afterwards, and in her madness telling the whole truth of her sense. Then she was passionate to the full, and the music in which she spoke, and the flowers which were her types were treated as the natural occupations of her purer lip, the services as well as the embodiments of her thoughts. This was expressed by the actress in her perfect spontaneity. The brother, Laertes, has always been one of the most ill-used of all the great dramatist's creations. He has always been made ferocious instead of quick in feeling. It would be difficult to contrive more pungent wrongs than he has to suffer, and such as would make a man, full of the worldly falsehood of punctilious courage, less nice about the means. Laertes invested himself with interest in the beginning by his anxious love, his fear for his sister, not words spoken merely, but earnest feelings expresscd. He was tender, anxious, doting on her, her honour, her youth, her beauty, her fate. In the latter part his rage became concentrated and terrible from the suppression of his tears; the anger itself was as grave as Macduff's, the deadly revenge was the prompting of the demon king ready to use it for his own fell purpose. I could tell you more, for who could see Hamlet played and not have more to say about it? But even what I have said, suppose you to know the play throughout, and to care more about it than the average of readers or auditors, perchance. But, this theatre of yours, may I ask you, where 66 In my mind's eye, Horatio,' as you knew before you asked. But that mind's eye has been informed by what every one may consult for himself. Shakespeare expected to be misunderstood in this play. He has commented himself on almost every scene, by repeating all the less obvious ones in a short description. Look through the text. Aye. I do not say that some performers have not done this diligently, but to "play out the play," as it should be. Why you will end as you begun; you will say there are “a few good actors wanted!" FIAT JUSTITIA! 'Twas when the moon was darkened o'er with clouds of lurid hue→→→ Twas when in all the blackened sky you'd see no speck of blue'Twas when the blast swept searching past, across the lonesome moor, Bearing its weight of snow and sleet to sixty houseless poor; Then rose the wail, upon the gale, of many a shivering mother, For there were deeds of justice done upon a wintry day, And twenty hovels, black and bare, without the thatch-roof lay. Knaves, famished, lean, with skin not clean, lank hair and horny hand, For twice a hundred years they toiled, in squalor and in grief, But blight had fallen upon the field; this year their rent-staff died; dies. Next day the sun shines cheerful down, as e'er shined wintry sun; With cheerful face of health and grace (true symbols of the good), While ambling now, with musing brow, a briary bank before, The good man falls-two death-winged balls his "fair round" body pierce, And o'er the bank, lean, eager, lank, just peer two faces fierce. A month hath waned,-the turf, blood-stained, has claimed the price of sin Two ghastly corpses, on a tree, in sickening silence swing. In many a page, by the county sage who rules the news-sheet wept. TIS. A HISTORY FOR YOUNG ENGLAND.* What a pitie is it to see a proper gentleman to have such a crick in his neck that he cannot look backward. Yet no better is he who cannot see behind him the actions which long since were performed. History maketh a young man to be old, without either wrinkles or grey hairs; privileging him with the experience of age, without either the infirmities or inconveniences thereof. Yea, it not onely maketh things past, present; but inableth one to make a rationall conjecture of things to come. For this world affordeth no new accidents, but in the same sense wherein we call it a new moon; which is the old one in another shape, and yet no other than what had been formerly. Old actions return again, furbished over with some new and different circumstances.-FULLER. CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH. JOHN, SURNAMED LACKLAND. 1199-1216. JOHN was present at the death-bed of Cœur de Lion; and the dying king was said to have declared him successor to the throne, and heir to one-third of his treasures. The latter he seized at Chinon; and passing into Touraine, Maine, and Anjou, was met in that ancient territory of the Plantagenets by the claim of his nephew Arthur. This adverse confederacy, headed by the Breton people, had a formidable aspect; and John, content with sacking the city of Mans, and burning down that of Angers, hastened into Normandy and Acquitaine, where, by the influence of friends whom he had long secretly cherished in those provinces, and backed by the hereditary rights of his mother, his sovereignty was admitted. He received the ducal coronet and sword at Rouen from the hands of the archbishop. He had been Earl; he was now Duke; and by God's teeth (his favourite oath) he swore he would be King. I have shown the growth of a power in England, during the last reign, claiming to overawe the crown and compel the responsibility of its ministers. But this power was never distinctly put in motion against the succession of John. When, indeed, on Archbishop Hubert's arrival with the letters from Normandy, justiciary Fitz-Peter commanded all freemen to swear allegiance to the duke, there was enough hesitation among the * Continued from p. 84, Vol. III. prelates and barons least affected to John's interest to render necessary the summoning of a great council at Northampton ; but there does not seem to have been much difficulty in procuring from this council, an unanimous resolution to swear fealty to John, Duke of Normandy, on the condition that the present rights of each individual should be respected. In truth, though the subsequent misfortunes and sorrowful death of Arthur largely moved sympathy in England, there was never any formidable stand attempted on the ground of his right to the throne. The battle was fought in the foreign provinces. Here, while some might have thought his claim superior to his uncle's; and many were certainly convinced of the superior weight of the frequent written testimonies of Cœur de Lion for his succession, as compared with the equivocal dying declaration alleged by John; there was hardly one man of influence that would have drawn the sword for him, on any such principle as that the crown of England was heritable property. The genius of the country was repugnant to that notion. It has been shown in this history, with what care, at each successive coronation since the Conquest, the form of the choice of the people was preserved; it will have been seen that of the five kings on whom the English crown has descended since the Conquest, four have been constrained to rest their most availing titl on that popular choice or recognition; but the most emphatic declaration of the principle was reserved for the coronation of John. He landed at Shoreham on the 25th of May, and two days afterward was crowned at Westminster. As I have before remarked, his right was in no particular admitted till after this ceremony. He was earl, until he assumed the ducal coronet; he was duke, until the national council of England, speaking through Hubert of Canterbury, invested him at Westminster with the English crown. This crown,' said that distinguished prelate, before he placed it on the head of John, is not the property of any particular person. It is the gift of the nation, which elects, 'generally from the members of the reigning family, the prince who appears in the existing circumstances the most deserving of royalty. No preceding events can entitle any one to succeed to this crown if he be not chosen king by the body of the nation (ab universitate regni electus), according to the example of Saul ' and David, who were not even of royal race. We have this day ❝ assembled to exercise that great duty, and have elected for our |