within itself (the story or premises being admitted), that constitutes its main charm and merit: it is, in fact, the relation which one character bears to another; the due blending of thoughts and incidents; one voice answering to another; one thought or event following another, like the consequence the cause; no object standing out, staring without meaning, disjointed, unallied to the rest; but all rounded off, classed, arranged: the light deepening into shadow, the darkness gradually emerging into light.

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In regard to the characters drawn by Shakspere, I do not recollect one in his undoubted dramas, that is not at once true, consistent, and complete. Our great poet never squares or clips a character to suit any preconceived theory; but permits each to do his best (or worst) as nature or education may inspire. 'Accommodate,' he says, ' is a good word;' but to accommodate or remould nature in order to fit a theory or demonstrate a problem, is a sacrifice of truth to conjecture; and Shakspere in essentials never sacrificed truth. Fault has been found with the construction of some of his plays as with the WINTER'S TALE,' for instance, or the fairy dramas — for doing violence to probability or the unities; but let the characters upon whom he has set his stamp once appear, and I defy the critic not to admit that every one is wrought out of the true metal. Not one of them is a mask, or a voice, or a chorus; but a man complete. The words he utters belong to himself, and to no one besides. Even the change

which we observe to take place in some of his dramatic personages, is one of the strongest proofs of their completeness and truth. That fluctuation which to an ordinary writer might seem to be a deviation from character, he knew to be one of its constituent parts: for the condition of man is complex and various. He is not built up by nature as a case or sounding-board for one particular note, grave or sharp; but for the whole diapason. To draw a character who shall stand up as the stiff representative of a single virtue, is to betray a woful ignorance of humanity. The virtues, as well as the vices, of man never come singly, but in troops. They abide with us, perhaps, but they are not rigid or inflexible. On the contrary, they change and are modified by many causes. The brave man of to-day may, like Macbeth, be a coward to-morrow; and the nerves of a Richard, who was yesterday foremost in the battle, may to-day be shaken by a dream.

In the mechanical drama (so to speak) in that which is formed without flexibility or variety in the characters or verse, like some of the French tragedies

there is a regular progress of puppets from the beginning to the end; the same voice of the same ventriloquist guiding them on, without fluctuation or pause. Nothing disturbs the monotony and weariness of the scene; nothing elevates or depresses the dialogue, which is always in alt. One personage is a tyrant, another a lover, a third a warrior, a fourth a friend; and each delivers himself duly of the maxims which belong to the virtue or passion which he is thus engaged to represent. They are all, in short, abstractions, and not men. Now, Shakspere's characters are not abstrac

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tions, nor are they mere sections of character. They are entire and complete. Neither are they mere characters standing alone or aloof. Each shows the relation he bears to others, and how he is operated upon by them. So Coriolanus, Macbeth, and Othello, exhibit the different phases of their character, according to the light cast upon them by the presence of other persons, or by the predominating passion of the scene. the physical courage and moral weakness of Macbeth, the fierce pride and relenting affection of Coriolanus, the calm command and stormy turbulence of Othello, are qualities naturally linked to each other, and harmonize with each other: as the different events of human life are connected and reconciled by various influences; by time or age, the ingratitude of children, the depression of fortune, or other causes. Sometimes, the greater passions are more completely developed and made manifest by the introduction of trivial objects. And this, which perhaps originated in the wide sympathy of Shakspere for all men, teaching him to despise none, is at once evidence of his supreme skill. Observe how the brutality of Caliban, and the drunken fooleries of Trinculo and Stephano, throw out in grand relief the grave majesty of Prospero, and contrast with the fresh simplicity of Miranda. So the stilted verse of the Players gives value to the natural words of Hamlet; and the fripperies of Osrick are effective as a prologue to the tragic duel. The loose Iachimo and vulgar Cloten make us look with double respect on the chaste and lonely Imogen; and the idiotic merriment of the Fool (strangely weighted and kept down by a sort of instinctive wisdom or shrewdness) brings out the mad

ness and sublimity of Lear; acting, by contrast, like a little light, which develops the darkness of the region around.

How Shakspere arrived at his conclusions, and mastered the difficulties of character, is a subject that has not yet been fathomed. Perhaps he could not himself have explained it so as to make it intelligible to all. Was it intuition, experience, or meditation, that led to those happy creations which no one has equalled? He painted, seemingly, partly from individual nature, but not wholly. His characters are not copies of particular men or women, for they have the general qualities which belong to their class. Neither are they abstractions (as we have said) of any vice or virtue, for they sometimes abound with humors and infirmities not often found in company with it. Perhaps he may have sketched from persons whom he had seen, and made up what seemed to be wanting in them, or rather what he had had no opportunity of discovering, out of his knowledge of what belonged to human nature; or he illustrated certain qualities of the mind which are usually or frequently found together, after studying instances of individual nature.

If Shakspere ever selected a single passion as the subject for tragedy (which I doubt), he at least qualified it, and forced it to bend to circumstances, to temperament, to education, or other antagonist causes. Moreover, he surrounded its representative with personages of a different order, opposite or subordinate; and by these means relieved his drama from the bareness and monotony which would otherwise have been inevitable. Thus, Othello is not simply a jealous man, nor is

Macbeth merely ambitious. The first is predisposed for his fate by his tropical birth and his martial calling; the other is by nature easy, speculative, and infirm. In each case, the master-passion is not in the commencement obvious. It is dormant, but capable of being awakened into a power that becomes resistless. The error of some writers of fiction has been that they have taken a cardinal vice, and severing it from all qualities that might have attended it, have left it single and unsupported, the sole end and object of the play. Others have smoothed down the inequalities of character, for the sake of a noble outline. Sometimes the historian has led the way, and the dramatist has slavishly followed him. Such authors have seen nature through books. Instead of this, they should have looked directly at man himself, examined him, and studied him, as they would a wonder never yet sufficiently known. It is quite clear, that no one can ever become a great dramatist who shall take the world' upon trust.'

As bearing upon this part of the subject, I may be excused for devoting a paragraph to the question of 'the learning of Shakspere.' Several writers have perplexed themselves and their readers in endeavoring to ascertain the amount of Shakspere's learning. In itself, it is a matter inexpressibly unimportant. It is of no importance to us, or to his own fame. Could the precise amount of his learning be weighed out in critical. scales (a thing quite impossible), it would neither diminish nor add to his merit. He must rest content, crowned with bays, instead of the doctor's cap.

It is possible, I think, that a man may be encumbered by too much learning: not that he is likely to know