any could do but himself. With all this, he had a goodness of nature and disposition in so great a degree that he may be deservedly styled a philanthrope. He was a very Silenus to the boys, as, in this place, I may term the students of the law, to make them merry whenever they had a mind to it. He had nothing of rigid or austere in him. If any, near him at the bar, grumbled at his stench, he ever converted the complaint into content and laughing with the abundance of his wit. As to his ordinary dealing, he was as honest as the driven snow was white; and why not, having no regard for money, nor desire to be rich? And, for good nature and condescension, there was not his fellow. I have seen him, for hours and half hours together, before the court sat, stand at the bar, with an audience of students over against him, putting of cases, and debating so as suited their capacities, and encouraging their industry. And so in the Temple, he seldom moved without a parcel of youths hanging about him, and he merry and jesting with them.

the court accordingly, which is frequently done in like cases."

Although we have been able to give but a few of the choice peculiarities of these volumes, our readers will be able to gather, from our extracts, that the profession of the law was a very different thing in the reign of Charles the Second, from what it is in the present era. There was something in it more robust and hearty than there is now. Lawyers treated on the dryest subjects, in a "full and heightened style," which now would receive merited ridicule, because it is natural no longer. When Lord Coke "wanders in the wilderness of the laws of the forest"-or stops to "recreate himself with a view of Dido's deer"-or looks on his own fourth Institute, as "the high and honourable building of the jurisdiction of the courts""-we feel that he uses the language of metaphor, merely because he thinks in it. Modern improvement has introduced a division of labour among the faculties. The regions of imagination and of reality are separated by stricter and more definite limits, than in the days of old. Our poems and orations are more wild and extravagant, and our ordinary duties more dry and laborious. Men have learned to refine on their own feelings-to analyze all their sensations-to class all their powers, feelings, and fantasies, as in a museum; and to mark and label them so that they may never be applied, except to appropriate uses. The imagination is only cultivated as a kind of exotic luxury. No one unconsciously writes in a picturesque style, or suffers the colour of his thoughts to suffuse itself over his disquisitions, without caring for the effect on the reader. The rich conceit is either suppressed, or carefully reserved to adorn some cold oration where it may be duly applauded. Our ancestors permitted the wall-flower, when it would, to spread out its sweets from the massive battlement, without thinking there was any thing extraordinary in its growth, or desiring to transplant it to a garden, where it would add little fragrance to the perfume of other flowers.

"It will be readily conceived that this man was never cut out to be a presbyter, or any thing that is severe and crabbed. In no time did he lean to faction, but did his business without offence to any. He put off officious talk of government or politics, with jests, and so made his wit a catholicon, or shield, to cover all his weak places and infirmities. When the court fell into a steady course of using the law against all kinds of offenders, this man was taken into the king's business; and had the part of drawing and perusal of almost all indictments and informations that were then to be prosecuted, with the pleadings thereon if any were special; and he had the settling of the large pleadings in the quo warranto against London. His lordship had no sort of conversation with him, but in the way of business, and at the bar; but once after he was in the king's business, he dined with his lordship, and no more. And there he showed another qualification he had acquired, and that was to play jigs upon a harpsichord; having taught himself with the opportunity of an old virginal of his landlady's; but in such a manner, not for The study of the law has sunk of late years. defect but figure, as to see him were a jest. Formerly, the path of those by whom it was The king, observing him to be of a free dispo- chosen, though steep and rugged, was clear sition, loyal, friendly, and without greediness and open before them. Destitute of adventior guile, thought of him to be the chief justice tious aids, they were compelled to salutary of the King's Bench at that nice time. And and hopeful toils. They were forced to trace the ministry could not but approve of it. So back every doctrine to the principle which was great a weight was then at stake, as could not its germ, and to search for their precedents be trusted to men of doubtful principles, or amidst the remotest grandeur of our history. such as any thing might tempt to desert them. Patient labour was required of them, but their While he sat in the Court of King's Bench, he reward was certain. In the most barren and gave the rule to the general satisfaction of the difficult parts of their ascent, they found, at lawyers. But his course of life was so differ- least, in the masses which they surmounted, ent from what it had been, his business inces- the stains and colourings of a humanizing ansant, and, withal, crabbed; and his diet and tiquity to soften and to dignify their labours. exercise changed, that the constitution of his But abridgments, commentaries, and digests body, or head rather, could not sustain it, and without number, have precluded the necessity he fell into an apoplexy and palsy, which of these liberal researches, while the vast numbed his parts; and he never recovered the accumulation of statutes and decisions have strength of them. He out-lived the judgment rendered them almost hopeless. Instead of a in the quo warranto; but was not present, other-difficult mountain to ascend, there is a briary wise than by sending his opinion, by one of the judges, to be for the king, who, at the pronouncing of the judgment, declared it to be

labyrinth to penetrate. Wearied out with vain attempts, the student accepts such temporary helps as he can procure, and despairs of re

com

ducing the ever-increasing multitude of deci- | increase until it shall work its own curesions to any fixed and intelligible principles. until accumulated reports shall lose their auThus his labours are not directed to a visible thority-or the legislature shall be goal-nor cheered by the venerableness of pelled, by the vastness of the mischief, to old time-nor crowned with that certainty of undertake the tremendous task of revising conclusion, which is the best reward of scien- and condensing the whole statute law, and tific researches. The lot of a superficial stu- fixing the construction of the unwritten dent of a dry science, is, of all conditions, the maxims within some tolerable boundaries. most harassing and fruitless. The evil must

REVIEW OF THE DRAMATIC LITERATURE OF THE AGE OF ELIZABETH.

[EDINBURGH REVIEW.]

Ir Mr. Hazlitt has not generally met with impartial justice from his contemporaries, we must say that he has himself partly to blame. Some of the attacks of which he has been the object, have, no doubt, been purely brutal and malignant; but others have, in a great measure, arisen from feelings of which he has himself set the example. His seeming carelessness of that public opinion which he would influence -his love of startling paradoxes—and his intrusion of political virulence, at seasons when the mind is prepared only for the delicate investigations of taste, have naturally provoked a good deal of asperity, and prevented the due appreciation of his powers. We shall strive, however, to divest ourselves of all prepossessions, and calmly to estimate those talents and feelings which he has here brought to the contemplation of such beauty and grandeur, as none of the low passions of this "ignorant present time" should ever be permitted to overcloud.

and separates it, in a moment, from all that would encumber or deface it. At the same time, he exhibits to us those hidden sources of beauty, not like an anatomist, but like a lover: he does not coolly dissect the form to show the springs whence the blood flows all eloquent, and the divine expression is kindled; but makes us feel it in the sparkling or softened eye, the wreathed smile, and the tender bloom. In a word, he at once analyzes and describes, so that our enjoyments of loveliness are not chilled, but brightened, by our acquaintance with their inward sources. The knowledge communicated in his lectures, breaks no sweet enchantment, nor chills one feeling of youthful joy. His criticisms, while they extend our insight into the causes of poetical excellence, teach us, at the same time, more keenly to enjoy, and more fondly to revere it.

that there are other causes which have diminished the influence of Mr. Hazlitt's faculties, originating in his mind itself; and these we shall endeavour briefly to specify.

It must seem, at first sight, strange, that powers like these should have failed to excite universal sympathy. Much, doubtless, of the Those who regard Mr. Hazlitt as an ordinary coldness and misrepresentation cast on them, writer, have little right to accuse him of suf- has arisen from causes at which we have fering antipathies in philosophy or politics to already hinted—from the apparent readiness influence his critical decisions. He possesses of the author to "give up to party what was one excellent quality, at least, for the office meant for mankind”—and from the occasional which he has chosen, in the intense admira-breaking in of personal animosities on that tion and love which he feels for the great au-deep harmony which should attend the reverent thors on whose excellences he chiefly dwells. contemplation of genius. But we apprehend His relish for their beauties is so keen, that while he describes them, the pleasures which they impart become almost palpable to the sense; and we seem, scarcely in a figure, to feast and banquet on their "nectared sweets." He introduces us almost corporally into the divine presence of the Great of old time-arrangement, and of harmony, in his powers. enables us to hear the living oracles of wisdom drop from their lips-and makes us partakers, not only of those joys which they diffused, but of those which they felt in the inmost recesses of their souls. He draws aside the veil of Time with a hand tremulous with mingled delight and reverence; and descants, with kindling enthusiasm, on all the delicacies of that picture of genius which he discloses. His intense admiration of intellectual beauty seems always to sharpen his critical faculties. He perceives it, by a kind of intuitive power, how deeply soever it may be buried in rubbish;

The chief of these may, we think, be ascribed primarily to the want of proportion, of

His mind resembles the "rich stronde" which Spencer has so nobly described, and to which he has himself likened the age of Elizabeth, where treasures of every description lie, without order, in inexhaustible profusion. Noble masses of exquisite marble are there, which might be fashioned to support a glorious temple; and gems of peerless lustre, which would adorn the holiest shrine. He has no lack of the deepest feelings, the profoundest sentiments of humanity, or the loftiest aspirations after ideal good. But there are no great leading principles of taste to give singleness to his

effaced; and that full and free course is at last given to that deep humanity which has ever held its current in his productions, sometimes in open day, and sometimes beneath the soil which it fertilized, though occasionally dashed and thrown back in its course by the obstacles of prejudice and of passion.

The first of these lectures consists of a general view of the subject, expressed in terms of the deepest veneration and of the most passionate eulogy. After eloquently censuring the gross prejudice, that genius and beauty are things of modern discovery, or that in old time a few amazing spirits shone forth amidst general darkness, as the harbingers of brighter days, the author proceeds to combat the notion that Shakspeare was a sort of monster of poetical genius, and all his contemporaries of an order far below him.

aims, nor any central points in his mind, around | has had its dash of the early sweets, which no which his feelings may revolve, and his im- changes of opinion could entirely destroy. Still aginations cluster. There is no sufficient dis- his audiences and his readers had ample tinction between his intellectual and his ima- ground of complaint for the intrusion of perginative faculties. He confounds the truths of sonal feelings, in inquiries which should be imagination with those of fact-the processes sacred from all discordant emotions. We reof argument with those of feeling-the immu-joice to observe, that this blemish is now nities of intellect with those of virtue. Hence the seeming inconsistency of many of his doctrines. Hence the want of all continuity in his style. Hence his failure in producing one single, harmonious, and lasting impression on the hearts of his hearers. He never waits to consider whether a sentiment or an image is in place-so it be in itself striking. The keen sense of pleasure in intellectual beauty, which is the best charm of his writings, is also his chief deluder. He cannot resist a powerful image, an exquisite quotation, or a pregnant remark, however it may dissipate, or even subvert, the general feeling which his theme should inspire. Thus, on one occasion, in the midst of a violent political invective, he represents the objects of his scorn as "having been beguiled, like Miss Clarissa Harlowe, into a house of ill-fame, and, like her, defending themselves to the last;" as if the reader's whole current of feeling would not be diverted from all political disputes, by the remembrance thus awakened of one of the sublimest scenes of romance ever imbodied by human power. He will never be contented to touch that most strange and curious instrument, the human heart, with a steady aim, but throws his hand rapidly over the chords, mingling strange discord with "most eloquent music." Instead of conducting us onward to a, given object, he opens so many delicious prospects by the wayside, and suffers us to gaze at them so long, that we forget the end of our journey. He is perpetually dazzled among the sunbeams of his fancy, and plays with them in elegant fantasy, when he should point them to the spots where they might fall on truth and beauty, and render them visible by a clearer and lovelier radiance than had yet revealed them.

The work before us is not the best verification of these remarks; for it has more of continuity, and less of paradox, than any of his previous writings. With the exception of some strong political allusions in the account of the Sejanus of Ben Jonson, it is entirely free from those expressions of party feeling which respect for an audience, consisting of men of all parties, and men of no party, ought always to restrain. There is also none of that personal bitterness towards Messrs. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey, which disfigured his former lectures. His hostility towards these poets, the associates of his early days, has always, indeed, been mingled with some redeeming feelings which have heightened the regret occasioned by its public disclosure. While he has pursued them with all possible severity of invective, and acuteness of sarcasm, he has protected their intellectual character with a chivalrous zeal. He has spoken as if "his only hate had sprung from his only love;" and his thoughts of its objects, deep rooted in old affection, could not lose all traces of their "primal sympathy." His bitterest language

"He, indeed, overlooks and commands the admiration of posterity; but he does it from the table land of the age in which he lived. He towered above his fellows 'in shade and gesture proudly eminent;' but he was but one of a race of giants, the tallest, the strongest, the most graceful and beautiful of them; but it was a common and noble brood. He was not something sacred and aloof from the vulgar herd of men, but shook hands with Nature and the circumstances of the time; and is distinguished from his immediate contemporaries, not in kind, but in degree, and greater variety of excellence. He did not form a class or species by himself, but belonged to a class or species. His age was necessary to him; nor could he have been wrenched from his place in the edifice, of which he was so conspicuous a part, without equal injury to himself and it. Mr. Wordsworth says of Milton, that 'his soul was like a star, and dwelt apart.' This cannot be said with any propriety of Shakspeare, who certainly moved in a constellation of bright luminaries, and drew after him the third part of the heavens.'" Pp. 12, 13.

The author then proceeds to investigate the general causes of that sudden and rich development of poetical feeling which forms his theme. He attributes it chiefly to the mighty impulse given to thought by the Reformationto the disclosure of all the marvellous stores of sacred antiquity, by the translation of the Scriptures-and to the infinite sweetness, breathing from the divine character of the Messiah, with which he seems to imagine that the people were not familiar in darker ages. We are far from insensible to the exquisite beauty with which this last subject is treated; and fully agree with our author, that "there is something in the character of Christ, of more sweetness and majesty, and more likely to work a change in the mind of man, than any to be found in history, whether actual or feigned." But we cannot think that the gentle influences which that character shed upon the

general heart, were weak or partial even before their view, without disguise or control. All the translation of the Scriptures. The young those causes Mr. Hazlitt regards as directed, had received it, not from books, but from the and their immediate effects as united by the living voice of their parents, made softer ingenius of our country, native, unaffected, its tones by reverence and love. It had tempered early enthusiasm, and prompted visions of celestial beauty, in the souls even of the most low, before men had been taught to reason on their faith. The instances of the Saviour's compassion-his wondrous and beneficent miracles-his agonies and death, did not lie forgotten during centuries, because the people could not read of them. They were written "on the fleshy tables of the heart," and softened the tenour of humble existence, while superstition, ignorance, and priestcraft held sway in high places.

front soothes Mattheo, Vittoria triumphs over her Judges, and old Chapman repeats one of the hymns of Homer, in his owr fine translation." Pp. 136, 137.

The spirit of this passage is very deep and cordial; and the expression, for the most part, exquisite. But we wonder that Mr. Hazlitt should commit so great an incongruity, as to represent the other poets around him in person, while Milton, introduced among the rest, is used only as the title of a book. Why are other authors to be "seated round," to cheer the critic's retirement as if living,-while Milton, like a petition in the House of Commons, is only ordered "to lie upon the table?"

and decorum, to make both the passions and the voice of humanity give way (as in the example of Calantha) to a mere form of outward behaviour. Such a suppression of the strongest and most uncontrollable feelings, can only be justified from necessity, for some great purpose,-which is not the case in Ford's play; or it must be done for the effect and eclat of the thing, which is not fortitude but affectation." The fallacy of this criticism appears to us to lie in the assumption, that the violent suppression of her feelings by the heroine was a mere piece of court etiquette-a compliment to the ceremonies of a festival. Surely the object was noble, and the effort sublime. While the deadly force of sorrow oppressed her heart, she felt that she had solemn duties to discharge, and that, if she did not arm herself against affliction till they were finished, she could never perform them. She could seek temporary strength only by refusing to pause

not to give the least vent to the tide of grief, which would at once have relieved her overcharged heart, and left her, exhausted, to die. Nothing less than the appearance of gayety could hide or suppress the deep anguish of her soul. We agree with Mr. Lamb, whose opinion is referred to by our author, that there is scarcely in any other play "a catastrophe so grand, so solemn, and so surprising as this!"

In the Fourth Lecture, ample justice is done to Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger and Ben Jonson; but we think the same measure is not meted to Ford. We cannot regard the author of ""Tis a Pity she's a Whore," and "The Broken Heart," as "finical and fastidious." We are directly at issue, indeed, with our au--by hurrying on the final scene; and dared thor on his opinions respecting the catastrophe of the latter tragedy. Calantha, Princess of Sparta, is celebrating the nuptials of a noble pair, with solemn dancing, when a messenger enters, and informs her that the king, her father, is dead :-she dances on. Another report is brought to her, that the sister of her betrothed husband is starved;-she calls for the other change. A third informs her that Ithocles, her lover, is cruelly murdered;-she complains that the music sounds dull, and orders sprightlier measures. The dance ended, she announces herself queen, pronounces sentence on the murderer of Ithocles, and directs the ceremonials of her coronation to be immediately prepared. Her commands are obeyed. She enters the Temple in white, crowned, while the dead body of her husband is borne on a hearse, and placed beside the altar; at which she kneels in silent prayer. After her devotions, she addresses Nearchus, Prince of Argos, as though she would choose him for her husband, and lays down all orders for the regulation of her kingdom, under the guise of proposals of marriage. This done, she turns to the body of Ithocles, "the shadow of her contracted lord," puts her mother's wedding ring on his finger, "to new-marry him whose wife she is," and from whom death shall not part her. She then kisses his cold lips, and dies smiling. This Mr. Hazlitt calls "tragedy in masquerade," " the true false gallop of sentiment;" and declares, that "any thing more artificial and mechanical he cannot conceive." He regards the whole scene as a forced transposition of one in Marston's Malcontent, where Aurelia dances on in defiance The Seventh Lecture, on the works of Lord to the world, when she hears of the death of a Bacon, compared as to style with those of Sir detested husband. He observes, "that a Thomas Browne and of Jeremy Taylor, is very woman should call for music, and dance on unequal. The character of Lord Bacon is in spite of the death of a husband whom she eloquent, and the praise sufficiently lavish; hates, without regard to common decency, is but it does not show any proper knowledge of but too possible: that she should dance on his works. That of Jeremy Taylor is somewith the same heroic perseverance, in spite of what more appropriate, but too full of gaudy the death of her father, and of every one else images and mere pomp of words. The style whom she loves, from regard to common cour-of that delicious writer is ingeniously described tesy or appearance, is not surely natural. The as "prismatic;" though there is too much of passions may silence the voice of humanity; shadowy chillness in the phrase, adequately but it is, I think, equally against probability to represent the warm and tender bloom which

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The Fifth Lecture, on Single Plays and Poems, brings into view many curious specimens of old humour, hitherto little known, and which sparkle brightly in their new setting. The Sixth, on Miscellaneous Poems and Works, is chiefly remarkable for the admirable criticism on the Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney, with which it closes. Here the critic separates with great skill the wheat from the chaff, showing at once the power of his author, and its perversion, and how images of touching beauty and everlasting truth are marred by "the spirit of Gothic quaintness, criticism, and conceit." The passage, which is far too long for quotation, makes us desire more earnestly than ever that an author, capable of so lucid and convincing a development of his critical doctrines, would less frequently content himself with giving the mere results of his thought, and even conveying these in the most abrupt and startling language. A remark uttered in the parenthesis of a sarcasm, or an image thrown in to heighten a piece of irony, might often furnish extended matter for the delight of those whom it now only disgusts or bewilders.