There is a heaviness which comes over us which we are too apt to mistake for meditation, and it is not until we wake that we are altogether aware of the pleasing soporific which Mr. Hamlet had unconsciously prepared for us. There is another ghost in this tragedy, who incautiously chooses to take the air within reach of the guns of a garrison. He may thank Mr. Shakspeare that he is not demolished-branch and root'-How lucky it is that authors are omnipotent with respect to their own creations!-A Miss Ophelia (one of the characters) goes mad, because her father dies, or, because she chooses to go mad, or for some other reason equally cogent. She sings songs (like our itinerant market women) about lavender and primroses, &c., and hangs herself, it seems, in order that her brother and Mr. Hamlet may fight about her. Her brother (Laertes) seems a gallant youngster, with no more brains than may be safely ascribed to the head of the family; and being puzzled on Mr. Hamlet's inviting him to eat a crocodile,' naturally declines making any answer, but fights him instead, with foils tipped with poison. These youths kill each other in an ingenious way, by changing weapons.-Half the dramatis personæ die-some weep -some are executed in a summary way-and the tragedy and our lethargy terminates at last.

Some of the other plays of this author call loudly for castigation; more especially a thing called "The Tempest," and a sort of puppet-show, entitled "A Midsummer Night's Dream," in which poor little unresisting creatures of about an inch long are pressed into the service of the tragic muse, and utter words as large and nonsense as sounding as fools of a larger genius; nay, their absurdities are equally imposing-one man appears with an ass's head, and inclines one almost to credit the doctrine of metempsychosis, and to think that he has merely returned to his original deformities. But enough. We hope that we have always shown ourselves to be the friends of true genius; but there is a spurious quality that in some measure approximates itself, which we are anxious at all times to decry. It

seems to us to be the case here, and we have accordingly done our best to warn the world against deception. Many silly people have attained a kind of celebrity for a short time, but posterity will not be long or be easily deceived; and its rewards will be eventually heaped upon those whose pretensions are recognised and adjusted by common sense.-Olliers' Miscellany.

LOVE.

ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
Are all but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay,
Beside the ruin'd tower.

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene,
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!

She lean'd against the armed man,
The statue of the armed knight;
She stood and listen'd to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best whene'er I sing

The song that makes her grieve.

I play'd a soft and doleful air,

I sang an old and moving story-
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listen'd with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes and modest grace; For well she knew I could not choose gaze upon her face.

But

I told her of the knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he woo'd
The lady of the land.

I told her how he pined; and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love,
Interpreted my own.

She listen'd with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn

That crazed that bold and lovely knight, And that he cross'd the mountain-woods, Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,

And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once

In green and sunny glade,

There came and look'd him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a fiend,
This miserable knight!

And that, unknowing what he did,

He leap'd amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
The lady of the land!

And how she wept and clasp'd his knees;
And how she tended him in vain-
And ever strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain.

And that she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves

A dying man he lay.

His dying words-but when I reach'd
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
Disturb'd her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrill'd my guileless Genevieve;
The music, and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
And undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherish'd long;-

She wept with pity and delight,
She blush'd with love and virgin-shame,
And like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.
Her bosom heaved-she stept aside,
As conscious of my look she stept-
Then suddenly, with timorous eye,
She fled to me and wept.

She half-enclosed me with her arms,
She press'd me with a meek embrace;
And bending back her head, look'd up,
And gazed upon my face.

'Twas partly Love and partly Fear,
And partly 'twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,
The swelling of her heart.

I calm'd her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin-pride.
And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous bride.

Coleridge.

HALF-PAY:

A SCENE IN ST. JAMES'S PARK.

PEACE being proclaimed, I became an idle man. For a time I was delighted with visiting my acquaintances, and nominal friends. Novelty (for I had long been abroad) increased the pleasure which I experienced in viewing domestic objects; but a very little time rendered them uninteresting, and ennui soon obtained possession of me, blighted every prospect, and made me long once more for the tented field, the changing quarters, the uncertainty of military life, nay, for its very dangers.

Sauntering down the Mall in St. James's Park, and ruminating on the past, my thoughts took a successive glance at the past and present; for the past and present form the whole of our life. The past is full of regrets; the present, generally speaking, is unsatisfactory in some shape or other; the future (which is the third and last state of man), is always fearfully obscure, and awfully beyond our reach.

Looking on the right and on the left, I espied a number of military men. The blue ornamented great coat, black silk kerchief round the neck, fixed spur, and dowlas trowsers, announced the dismounted dragoon, (for although the collegian, the puppy, the counter coxcomb, and the sharper, occasionally ape this dress, the dragoon is discernible to a military eye.) The gray surtout and pantaloons, less easy air, and less affected style, showed the infantry officer, reduced, like the former, on half-pay, with Wellingtons unspurred. Both had issued from first floors in Suffolk-street, back rooms about the Adelphi and Strand, or hiding-places in the suburbs,

"Wandering along, not knowing what they sought,
And whistling as they went for want of thought."

I could easily distinguish the different nations amongst