forms, instead of moulding and subjecting it to the law of their minds. It is therefore the tyrant, not the servant of their thoughts. But with Shakspeare, language became as soft and limber as water at the fountain. He was its

master, and in his mind it obeyed no laws, for it knew none, but his. Without shape or color of its own, it assumed under his plastic hand the precise shape and color of his thoughts. Words have obeyed some others from convenience, they obeyed him from necessity. He is the true Adam of English literature: both things and words heard and came at his call, the former to receive names, the latter to be given to them. He is enough of himself to immortalize the English tongue; he has made it as imperishable and almost as inimitable as the Greek. Well might Wordsworth say,

'We must be free,'" &c.

We regret that Mr. Hudson should have used Coleridge so freely without making an acknowledgment, since it will enable "some people," who are nothing if not cavilling, to cower from his downright blows, under the imputation of plagiarism, and thereby elude the happy possibility of having nonsense fairly cudgelled out of their brains. That our author does not intend to be a plagiarist, will be evident to all candid persons who read his book; but we shall not undertake to defend him for such an extension of the ordinary privilege of quotation as he has here introduced, even though the chapter thus served up be one which all students must be presumed to have almost by heart. There are several other instances of the kind in his lectures, for which the expression in his dedication of a strong desire to add "the interest of novelty to any notions so old and true, that they are in danger of being forgotten," is not a sufficient excuse. Where opinions were so literally copied, the authorities should have been cited, as in legal decisions.

But to return:-The view of Coleridge in the extract above given, arrives at the same distinction with that we were about to propose, in considering Shakspeare as one rapt in contemplation and speaking entirely to himself, while Milton is full of an earnest purpose, and addresses the world. It is very presumptuous to speculate on a subject which has been made so clear by one of the most profound critics that ever wrote, yet as our view may help some readers to the better understanding of his, we shall not withhold it.

Our theory then is, that the true solution of the Shakspeare problem is to be found in the character of Hamlet. We can best account for his ability to make himself "the one Proteus of the fire and the flood," by considering him to be in himself an unideal Hamlet-one whom everything made to think, and who was so full of reflection, so all-grasping in perception, and so lofty and pure in heart, that he could never be moulded by the world into a desperate earnest creature, could never attain to a set of opinions, but remained observing like a boy, even after he had grown through and settled most of the great questions of government and morals that agitate the world in general. In short, he was a man who lived in meditation, and who, whenever his mind was at repose, was not cogitating of darling purposes, nor feeding himself with vanity, but rather occupied with thick-coming ideas, and brooding pleasurably over innumerable unutterable thoughts. He was one who, like Hamlet, hid himself from himself so completely that he was never assured of his own character, and only knew himself as one of those melancholy spirits with whom the devil is " very potent.' They had not defined thinking in his time, and got so into the roots of it, but that a man might lead a reflective life without knowing it,indeed perchance his very prince has more to answer for in this respect than has ever been suspected; he is so noble a gentleman that all scholars naturally take a pride in imitating him, and hence he may have contributed to encourage that lofty reserve which is congenial to pure contemplation, and which is always an attribute of the most intellectual characters in our English poetry and fiction.

Pure spiritual greatness is never in any age or time readily yielded its proper place. The world asks for those rough and ready instruments, learning and intellectual training. It will not believe, on his unsupported authority, that one man sees or feels more than another; the old can say to the young, "We know and you do not, but the wise cannot (if they have to live by them) take that liberty with the foolish. The growth of Shakspeare's genius must have forced him continually into a more and more learned class than that in which his youth had been passed. To sustain

his position, he must have made up in quickness what he lacked in training, and hence have literally "lived upon his wits," in every sense of the word. This placed him in unusual relations with his associates. They loved him: they thought he had "an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions;" but they did not think of teaching him to look upon his wit as a virtue, and so to admire it and turn it wrong side out.

If we

Thus he went on, thinking and thinking, after his own fashion, in a universe of his own, where there was as much variety as in the universe around, so much indeed that it was enough for him to observe and repicture it, without attempting to reconcile contradictions, or to discover and propagate universal laws. He had business to attend to, money to earn, jovial company to keep, and he could not afford time to be a philosopher, except in that sense in which every great artist is one. could open his heart and dissect him, the great purposes of his life would be found, we apprehend, very plain, simple and business-like. As for his writing, he probably thought well of it; but if he could be called up and questioned, it is like he would tell us truly that it cost him, with all his affluence, a world of labor, and that nothing stood in his way so much as his "villainous melancholy." He probably valued himself upon his study, upon what he had acquired and done, and upon his friends and patrons. In the society he enjoyed, there was little danger of a man's reaching that state of unhealthy conceit which it has been the fashion with "some people" to affirm of him. A man who was in the habit of often drinking too much sack with Ben Jonson, was not likely to become a self-idolator.

It was this very position, which isolated him while it kept him active, which compelled him to write in the midst of a busy world, that no doubt contributed, with other circumstances, to preserve healthful so rare and sensitive a soul. His very early marriage was also fortunate for him and us. Being eight years older than he, it is probable Anne Hathaway was in some sort his teacher; his going up to London naturally enough separated them. Thrown alone into the city at the age of twentythree, a sensitive boy, full of intellect and

imagination, the experience of five years of married life with a wife so much his senior must have been a most happy circumstance for him; the theatre was not then the pure place it is now. But all these circumstances which gathered around to preserve him, left him still more and more to his natural custom of reflection. He was alone; the learning he acquired he got himself, and he shows us how fond he must have been of study. His soul was proud and lofty, far within-unseen by himself. He felt a princely gentleman; and it was a constant habit with him to consider seriously or for pleasure the characters of other men and the doings of life. He studied his art with infinite power of selfcompulsion; he meant to be a great poet, and knew when he was one. But in the secret life of his spirit, he dwelt apart, far above his art, far above all passions, (for he could not have feigned them so well had he not been master of them,) far above the opinions of men, in "clear dream and solemn vision," like one over whom

"his immortality

Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave,
A presence which is not to be put by."
He was one who debated with himself

whether this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire, were so indeed, or only a foul whether man were the paragon of animals, and pestilent congregation of vapors; busy was his mind with such inquiries and or only the quintessence of dust; and so with

"All thoughts, all passions, all delights,

Whatever stirs this mortal frame," that, beyond the common cares of life, he dwelt in this abstract region-not a proud man, but one of a most lofty nature-a royal muser. So entirely natural and spontaneous was this reflectiveness, and so absorbing, that it took in all objects, thoughts, and emotions, not more without than within, even to the very life of the soul, or the primary consciousness; rendering him a complete mirror of all that came within his ken, himself included. How very elevated must have been his actual soul who could concentrate the multitudinous image through the lens of art, and send it upon the world in burning rays of poetry! It was as if he superintended himself and all the world from a

heavenly throne; not indifferently, but in sympathy, like a God.

What innate imaginative power it must require to exist at such a sublime elevation, we ordinary mortals can form no proper idea. Consider a moment that every man is objective to himself, and wishes to think well of himself. Conceited persons may carry it high, to be sure, but there is a secret misgiving with them, and time generally causes it to grow. Most peope who mix with the world, have somewhere within a pretty fair estimate of themselves, though often it is probably not agreeable to contemplate it, and they find it not desirable to be true to it. But great artists are certainly not afraid to look at themselves in their hours of labor.

When Shakspeare was at work upon a play, it is evident he was living in a very high region-far removed from our common life, and where, to speak philosophically, he imaged himself to his consciousness, as a BEING almost purely composed of consciousness-controlling faculties; that is, using the nomenclature of Coleridge, his secondary imagination, which is "an echo of the primary, co-existing with the conscious will," was so strong that it nearly identified itself with the primary, which is "the repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM." One step further would have made him a creature of inspiration.

Milton gained this region also, but not by the same path. He was upborne, not by a rapt contemplation, but by the fervor of emotion. He rose on the wings of music, the sense of power giving birth to greater power, and bearing the passionate old man so out of himself that he too became godlike, in that the primary "I am" was almost lost in its echo, the state assumed under the guidance of the conscious will. Shakspeare was a mortal raised to the skies; within the soul of Milton an angel had been drawn down.

Mr. Hudson must answer for this discussion. In general such definement is not very interesting or profitable. It were best to let Shakspeare remain Shakspeare-nothing other. For our own part, Hamlet's mock definition of Laertes would be all-sufficient for the father of them both:

"To divide him inventorily, would dizzy the arithmetic of memory; and yet but raw neither,

in respect of his quick sail. But in the verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of great article; and his infusion of such dearth and rareness, as, to make true diction of him, his semblable is his mirror; and, who else would trace him, his umbrage, nothing more."

And we might say the same of all of Shakspeare's characters. It is not the mind's first wish to have them “divided inventorily;" whenever they are spoken of, we prefer that they should be simply referred to as persons perfectly well known. We do not enjoy a walk in the fields any the more for having the name of each And particular flower pointed out to us. besides, let one consider how difficult it is to give an estimate of characters which affect us as individuals; even in real life we are obliged to keep very much in the generals; such an one is a good soul," another is a "gentleman," another, "Lord Saxby, man of six foot ten," (his portrait is in the prints of foxhunts,) or "conversation Brown,-four-bottle man at the Treasury Board, with whom the father of my friend Gay was probably acquainted." Cousin Feenix gives individuals, such as they are, as vividly as though he went into their biographies. He sees the salient point, and flashes the man upon us with a word.

So it should be in the most elaborate analysis. Mr. Hudson has little of this power, and hence, along with much in these lectures that shows true and delicate insight, there is a great expense of wit, which, though honestly exercised, is not collected in burning foci, but leaves the impression of a world of good things, pleasant in the reading, and altogether wholesome, yet wanting in the attractive and adhesive quality which would make them fasten themselves upon the mind. Still, with a class of readers who are comparatively unpracticed, both in the study of Shakspeare and in thinking, they must be of infinite service. They have an awakening influence, which, if encouraged, may lead many readers to the joy of peace in believing; while they quench sentimentalism, they foster the habit of that free-thinking which is based on Christianity, knowledge and

common sense.

But without a wit as active as Mr. Hudson's, we should fall short with him and not excel with him in going into a minute examination of his views of particular

characters. Let it suffice that in general | his perceptions are true: had he more poetry in him, with no less wit, we should have liked better what we now like welland our remarks would probably have savored more of the warmth of advocacy than of the coolness of deliberation.

The sentence reminds us, both in sound and sense, not to conclude our article without admonishing our author for some of his liberties with language. He has thought proper to be almost as antithetical as the Euphuists whom Shakspeare delighted to ridcule :-e. g. a few sentences:

"Accordingly his poetry is instinctively philosophical and his philosophy instinctively poetical; histories come from him like creations, and creations like pure histories. In a word, his creative and perceptive faculties are constantly playing into each other's hands and perfecting each other's work; and it is hard to tell whether he carries more of imagination into the regions of truth or more of truth into the regions of imagination."

"The lord and the tinker (Sly) are the two extremes of society; so much so, indeed, that they well-nigh meet round on the other side, as extremes are apt to do. There is just about as much gold in the one character as in the other; only in the lord it is all on the outside, in the shape of gilding; in the tinker it is all in the centre, in the shape of a kernel. And it is

doubtful which be more ludicrous or the more dignified, the ennui which drives the one to seek sport in duping a sot, or the sottishness which makes the other dupable into the belief of his being a lord."

"On the whole, it is not easy to decide whether the poet hath conferred the greater favor upon us by writing this play, (Comedy of Errors,) or by writing no more like it."

"Now, to say that Shakspeare's age was a rude age, that it was without true culture, in the best sense of the term, is about as magnificent a piece of historical misrepresentation as can easily be found. It is one of the instances so common in modern times, wherein people have presumed their fathers to have been in the dark, because they have themselves got into the dark respecting their fathers."

"In bringing my teaspoon to this Niagara, (the tragedies,) I trust I am not ignorant on which side the danger lies: I have not forgot ten, and shall not forget, that he who can look the sun in the face with undazzled eye has some reason to distrust his sight. Wherefore, in regard to this part of the course, I can only say, I dare neither refuse to try nor hope to succeed; I cannot expect to do much, and will not despair to do something; and if my

performances should be found small, I trust the smallness of my promises will not be forAt all events, let me entreat you for gotten. your own sakes not to transfer the feebleness of my efforts to the account of my subject: and I shall deem myself fortunate if, small as I am, the greatness of my load do not crush me into less even than my usual dimensions."

This is well enough in its way, yet it is anything but good writing; it is simply point-making. No man can write in such a fashion without knowing that he is odd, and without meaning to be so; and a writer who practices such fire-works must not expect to acquire the sounding flow of natural fervor. wit and a humorist, but he must not be He may be good as a allowed to consider himself a good writer.

There is no worse habit, both for its monotony and its effect upon a writer's mind, than this constructing antitheses and pointed sentences. It breaks up thinking into mote-catching, and gives a see-saw motion to style that drowses perception in the reader.

We trust there are few readers who would not consider it an insult to their good sense for us to go into an explanation how we can be pleased with such things for what they are, and still so decidedly object to them, as characterizing a style. Nor is it necessary, we believe, that our author should be very severely treated for what there is reason to suppose he has emotion enough to outgrow. Only-let no one imitate him. He has prepared these pellets of wit for "some people," and has therewith exterminated that class, so that we can go on now, without thinking of, or writing at or for them. But they that are well need no physician; and there is no reason why we should be made to swallow any more antithetical pills, though ever so well disguised with saucy wit.

Mr. Hudson has now a right to take advantage of the position he as a literary man has honestly acquired, and to go on laboring for truth, not in his original sphere, as one unknown to the public, but in that to which he has raised himself by being a successful writer. As a lawyer who practices several years with success in inferior cases ought, as he goes on, to take the responsibility of more important ones, leaving the others to younger men; or, as a physician, after having experience in prolonging

the lives of poor patients, ought gradually to esteem it his place to take the care of those whose health is of more importance to society; so should a man of letters, when he has got through his justice court and dispensary practice, carry into a higher walk of his profession the qualities that have sustained him through the unavoidable rudimental exercises, and dare from his attained eminence another and loftier flight. Many passages in these lectures show that their author, would he but attempt it, has the power to master a fine rhetorical style, and thus to elevate the reader instead of addressing him at his own level. He is never very free from mannerism or stiffness, (his dedication is horribly nice,) but yet he shows in many passages the ability to command an impressive eloquence. The following, though marred by the tendency to antithesis, is very beautiful:

"The truth is, the ages of Pericles, of Augustus, and of Leo, all together, can hardly show so much wealth of genius and of culture as the single age of Elizabeth. It was, so to speak, a perfect volcanic eruption of every order of talent, of every degree of intellectual excellence. Or rather, it was the Sabbath of Christendom, when the fierce stormful elements of mediæval chaos first appeared in a beautiful and beneficent creation, and the genius of modern civilization, resting from his long labors, first smiled upon the works of his hands. Uniting faith without superstition, and philosophy without skepticism, it seems to have had all the grace of art without stiffness, all the sincerity of youth without its ignorance, and all the enthusiasm of chivalry without its extravagance. This flowerage of so many centuries of preparation, this bursting forth of the bloom and perfume which had been accumulating for ages, had neither the twilight rudeness nor the midday sultriness, but simply the morning freshness of modern civilization; the freshness, too, of a morning sparkling with dews and vocal songs, as if the star-beams of the preceding night had been fashioning themselves into music and gems; a morning crowned with all the brightness, yet free from all the languor of the day

which hath since followed."

The antitheses here do not seem studied, and the flow of expression harmonizes with the thought. Though extremely artificial in structure, the paragraph has therefore a poetic effect. The style seems to have been formed by art acting under the impulse of emotion.

But how very capable our author is of taking place among the best writers, both as having skill with language and true elevation, may be seen by the following:

"We see Cordelia only in the relation of daughter, and scarcely see her even there; yet we know what she is or would be throughout the whole circle of human relations, just as well as if we had seen her in them all. She is just such a creature, like some we may have known, as it makes one feel safer and happier to live in the same town with; to walk the same streets that she walks in ; to kneel in the same church where she hath knelt: such an one, the knowledge of whose being in the same house with us renders our room more comfortable, our outlook more beautiful; puts peace into our pillow, and a soft religious life and joy into our thoughts; makes the night calmer, and the day cheerfuler, the air softer and balmier about us at thought of whom the objects that were looking black upon us brighten up into smiles; the consciousness of whose presence brings consecration of the place and sanctification of the feelings; and the knowing of whom regenerates and purifies the heart, because she can be truly known only in proportion as the heart is pure. And finally, Cordelia, so rich in mild, sweet, gentle austerities, belongs to that class of beings, of whom there are probably more to be found than there are to find them, who seem born to give happiness or something better than happiness to others, and yet to know little of it themselves: unless, peradventure, they have the unseen and unprized gift of sharing the happiness they create; so that while they seem no less pitiable, they really are no less enviable, than admirable."

This is rhetorical and antithetical, but it feels natural-truly eloquent eloquent in spite of the handy-dandy fashion of tossing A writer whose the thought to and fro. perceptions are so true, and who seems to have so much genuine emotion, ought to be held very strictly to task for his affectation and bad habits. He ought to be commanded, "more in sorrow than in anger," or rather entreated, in the love of truth and for his own sake, to strive after what he seems so able to reach, a simple free eloquence that would enable his heart. and mind to have their proper influence upon his fellow-countrymen.

Perhaps it will be thought unfair, as it is certainly unusual, to criticise an author for what he ought to be, when we have given him so much praise for what he is. But Mr. Hudson, from the delightful manner in which he has accomplished his mis