I understand it is clearly shewn by several old tattered Danish manuscripts, that King Hamlet was descended from Otho or Oatho the Great.

on it. The manner, however, in which Hamlet receives his ghostly father's directions to "Swear" at his associates, is sufficingly confirmatory of my reading of it. I see no reason therefore for the old gentleman mincing the word as Mr. Umbra directs.

A few words on Shakspeare's ghosts in general, and I have done. It may not have been observed, but it is a fact, that all Shakspeare's ghosts are fat and determined. Julius

Casar is not only jolly himself, but
hates all lean and hungry men. He
wishes Cassius were fatter. Banquo
is a merry gentleman who is craved
for at the feast, as one who would do
it justice, and who comes upon the
wish. Indeed, it is quite clear to
me, that Shakspeare wished his
ghosts to be well embodied; and if I
but add one ounce to the ribs of any
of his spirits I shall not have written
in vain.
HORRIDA BELLA.

THE RHAPSODIST.

NOON.

RAPT by her two gray steeds, the car of Morn
Bears her above the lark (his lofty song

Pouring from Heav'n's high crown): yet ere the cope
Be won, she hears, thickening upon her steps,
The snort and tread of Phoebus' rolling wain
Torn up the road of day; her pale-shod wheels,
Yea, ev'n the flaxen ringlets of the Dame,
Are blazing all to hindward !-On he whirls,
And scarce a chariot length between !-She burns,
And chides, and pants, and cries!-Over his team
Hyperion bends, loud-cheering; Phlegon sweats,
And Ethon; Pyrois shakes himself to foam,
Whilst fierce Eoüs at the nostril breathes
His dragon-soul,-that these gray Matineers,
Their vantage ta’en, should win the goal of noon,
And bear the palm away!-'Tis won! 'tis won!—

Now turn thee from the glorious skies, (so bright,
The eagle blind-fold soars against the sun,)
To Earth's refreshing view: yet even her robe
Is golden green, almost too rich emblazed;
The hills, and the wide woodland, and the valleys,
Burn with excessive day, and light o'erflows
The general horizontal globe terrene.-
Now in the meads, ye Shepherds, now begin
To charm the listening hours; adown the vale
Let your sweet song go echoing. Where, I pray,
Where now's the woody Muse's worshipper?
The fond-eyed boy, that stealing summer's breath
Pours it within his pipe,-as down the side

Phlegon, Ethon, Pyrois, and Eous, the four horses of the chariot of the Sun.

Of yon green hill he totters, carolling,
Each break of sun-light? Is he in the plains,-
Or basking on the napless mountain-top,-

Or treading down the deep grass of the vale?-
Hark! from the bushes, all along the stream,
Melody rises, and the small waves steal
With footless motion, underneath the sound
Murmuring to each other: Hark, again!—
O silvery pipe! the honey-sucker bends
His course about the rose with double glee,
Chiming his hum to thy sweet thrill, and now,
(Drawn by the fine attraction of his ear,)
Along the brook wings up his winding way,
Where the lost waters wander from the song.-
How melancholy-wild the sylvan strain!
How sad poor Echo sighs! when to her ears
Come notes, her own Narcissus breathed of old
Amid the audient hills. This eloquent air
Trembles again!-Saturn once more holds sway!

The time's Arcadian, and the Naiads thus

Moan to their streaming urns ;-or through their canes,
Sev'n-tubed, the Wood-maids sigh: Hark! hark! the sounds

Are true Parnassian, the sweet reeds of Castaly

Do blow their hollow trumpets in the downs,
Waking the tender ear of Pity. O, rare!—
Apollo, sure, doth haunt this sacred glen,

Or the Thrax bard: for see! the lithe trees bow
Over the nook that shuts in half his soul
Who breathes it all mid their inclining leaves,
And wins them downward: Melody hath fill'd
So full a pipe, not since the shepherd-reign
Of wood-enamour'd Pan, or Sylvan, whom
Echo did answer with so sweet redound,
He never sang again. But who is here?
Who but the Rhapsodist, amid the shades
Swelling his oat? Amid the sulky shades
That close the brow at the o'er-peering sun,
Mid their green darkness, deep-down in the dale,
He sings, moss-pillow'd; or beside the elm
Flinging its shadier horror o'er the stream,
He leans, whilst the black waters at his feet
Stumble along their rocky way, he leans,
Companion of the listening nightingale,
Who cons her nightly music from his notes,
Unseen herself the while, and mute. Now forth,
Forth comes the boy, tuning his pastoral flute
To gayer, yet as sweet-wild measures. Slow,
And turning oft, and piping, up the bourne
He thrids his violet walk, invisible
With many another flower of equal hue,
But scarce so sweet as this:-Sudden he stops!
To listen if the charmed valley sings.-

A smother'd roar seems to attend his song,
Involuntary harmony, soft-breathed and low,—
Of winds, and woods, and murmuring birds within,
Of streams, and reeds canorous; the dull drone'
Fills up his ears, of the sand-number'd swarms
That the hot grass engenders, when, out-sung,
The loud-wing'd bee serves but to lead the choir.

Now drooping in the fervour of the glade
The wandering Minstrel turns: An odorous bank,
All willow-grown, descends into the stream,
And up its feet the little ripples climb

With emulous struggles,-then fall back, and laugh
At their own folly, and then glide away:
Hither he hies, his meadow-pipe y-slung
Carelessly from his neck, and lays him down
With head on hand, beneath the willow shade,
Curtain so green; and stretches forth his limbs
Athwart the couchant grass, as down as silk,
But fresh with unstol'n dew: Here may he lie,
And listen to the music of the groves,
And hear the soft waves lapping on the shore,
And catch the whispers wanton Zephyr breathes
Into the ear of love-sick flowers, and mark
The fractious melody the runnel makes
Down, far a-field, where it doth spit its foam
At sturdy rocks, and island tufts, amidst
Its liquid path, breasting it, as it rolls
And wrangles through the bottom of the dell.

Here in the bosom of the woodland, he,
The Rhapsodist, doth ever love to dream
With Silence or the Muse: his summer bower
A Dryad girl doth weave; Oread or Faun,
Smooth-handed Faun, bis dale or mountain lair:
Satyr doth pipe for him, when he is tired,

Amid the sounding groves; and those green Maids,
(O that he still might see them!—but they fled
All to their inner caves, when Man unveiled

Their rites mysterious to the vulgar eye,

And delicate unseen charms)—the Fountain Nuns,
Immured each one within her crystal cell,
Chaunt in his ears a never-ceasing song,
The still sweet burthen of their flowing wells.
Such is the joy of Noon,-to him whose soul
Is fitted for Elysium: He who finds
No pleasure in the Noon-tide hour shall weep,
For ever, in the doleful shades of Acheron.

JOHN LACY'S REPLY

⚫ TO

THE LETTER OF TERENTIUS SECUNDUS, A “DRAMATIST OF THE DAY.”

"

improving,-these were the passions which sharpened my pen whilst I wrote my six Letters to Dramatists. Your favour of March last proved that better feelings might have inspired me to undertake this work; I judged too harshly of the age and the Irritable Tribe. Hope, and not De

quill; the "white-handed" goddess, now pointing to the stage, tells me it shall be regenerated.

SIR, Your letter, addressed to me, in the March number of the LONDON MAGAZINE, gave me, I confess, no little surprise. When I wrote my first "Letter to the Dramatists," my -object and expectation were, as I then expressed myself, merely to create a "nascent impulse towards legitimate dramatism;” I had no no-spair, should have sat upon my goosétion that before my "Postscript was a moon old, the principles upheld in it and the six preceding letters would be subscribed to by a "Dramatist of the Day," and a" successful" one. This was far beyond what, to speak less courteously than honestly, I had hoped from the prejudice of the age and the pertinacity of your profession: the age is indisputably voluptuous, effeminate, and sensual (to use the characteristic word of a contributor of last month),—it will therefore naturally reject all poetry but that which ministers to this its morbid disposition; your profession (the poetic) has never been remarkable for lending an ear to any suggestion which seems to impeach its profane infallibility,-inspiration, if not contrary to reason, is generally considered as above it. This twofold consideration damped my confidence, though not my ardour; I wrote earnestly, but (which you would scarcely suspect from my language) I wrote dejectedly; it would have been impolitic then, but I now acknowledge the truth, that I had but a faint hope of any result whatever from my Letters. They were dictated rather by a wish to vent my sorrow and my spleen at the final demise of Tragedy, than by the hope of revivifying her, though I dissembled my real feelings. Anger, indignation, and chagrin, upon seeing Melpomene, as I thought, banished from the only stage she had ever trod, since Thespis turned mountebank, with a natural step and familiar dignity, disdain upon finding her hereditary boards usurped by the sing-song Muse of Modern Poetry, -and the spirit of revenge, which felt a wretched gratification in condemning what I despaired of curing, in annihilating what I despaired of MAY, 1824.

I know not how far the above honest confession will plead my excuse for the severity and unkindness towards the Dramatists of the Day, with which you charge me in your epistle. I might perhaps allege with some degree of truth, that I was "cruel only to be kind," for I well knew that the only instrument to be applied, with the most distant chance of correcting your errors, was the scourge. You, however, seem to have had a better appetite for the "crustula." You say that I should have given you "time" and "encouragement." What! to confirm you in your mal-practices, and strengthen you in your false principles! For which of your good qua lities should I have praised you? for your plot-work, your passion, your versification, your running dialogue, or your delineation of character? For none of these: your own letter allows, on the part of yourself and your Fraternity, that your interest in them all is not worth a laurel-leaf. For your poetry, then? it remains that I should have lauded you for this your excellent qualification. Why, Sir, if it were possible to put my Letters to music, they might be sung to a harp with one string, and that string should sound nothing but poetry! poetry! poetry! So far from my Letters disallowing you the praise of being poets, they uniformly accuse you of being nothing else. If indeed you mean to say that, finding you so full of the poetical faculty, I should thence have encouraged you to hope for success in the drama, it is but replying,-that Milton, though he were clapped on the back by Aristotle or Longinus, would most pro

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