merits of his precious philosophy. Lord Lafeu, in "All's Well," indignantly protests against these prigs of sages, who, by making wonders of nothings, induce men to treat mysteries as insignificant toys. He says: "We have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar things supernatural and causeless.. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors; ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.”

Our poet has made many of his characters-not philosophers in themselves the vehicles for philosophy. Falconbridge, Richard II., John of Gaunt, Bolingbroke, Edmund, Edgar, and others, are all, in their several individual styles, made the medium of philosophic truths. Even such a character as Patroclus is made to utter some sound good sense; but the dramatist, with his usual appropriateness, has clothed it in figurative diction.

The philosophy of indifferentism, with the fatality of weakness, vacillation, and indolent delay, is condensed into these two lines:

Omission to do what is necessary

Seals a commission to a blank of danger.

And what a homily of wholesome moral teaching stands forth in this single pregnant one: "Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves."

Cassius says some fine things, although, as a whole, his character. and speeches are purposely drawn inferior in excellence to those of Brutus. Here, however, is one of the noble sentences put into Cassius's mouth :—

Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass;
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit.

In like manner many of Shakespeare's dramatis personæ, not specifically jesters, are constituted vehicles for jesting. Benedick, Biron, Dogberry, Nick Bottom and his fellows, among several more, furnish matter for jesting, though they are a whole hemisphere from being "professed jesters." Benedick being a man of wit, and of a blithe temperament (and thus much he is a philosopher), his words. frequently take the shape of gay jesting; but it is on this very account that Benedick has no fancy to be considered a jester-a "professed jester." His delightful humour and choice wit render him a favourite associate of Don Pedro, the Prince of Aragon; but his various higher qualities as a gentleman and a scholar give him better claims to favour than those of a gay companion only. It is

this that makes Beatrice's calling him the "Prince's jester" so intolerable a gibe. She knew it-the hussey!—with her woman's shrewdness in finding out precisely what will most gall the man she prefers, and he shows that it touches him to the quick by reverting to it in soliloquy, and repeating it again to his friends when they come in. A man of lively humour, who is excited by his native gaiety of heart to entertain his friends by his pleasantry, at the same time feeling within himself that he possesses yet stronger and worthier grounds for their partiality, has a peculiarly sensitive dread of being taken for a mere jester or buffoon. Benedick is no mere airy jester; his buoyant spirits are no effect of levity or frivolity; his humour has depth of feeling as well as mirth in it; his wit has force and geniality no less than intellectual vivacity. That little sentence of his, with all its sportive ease, is instinct with moral good sense: "Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending." Benedick's wit has penetration and discernment in it. It is he who first traces the mystery of Hero's slander to the machinations of Don John. His speech at once clears his friends Don Pedro and Claudio from any wilful malice in the accusation, and attributes its origin to the right source. He says:

Two of them have the very bent of honour:
And if their wisdoms be misled in this,

The practice of it lives in John the bastard,
Whose spirits toil in frame of villainies.

With all his mercurial temperament, yet in a grave question Benedick can deliver himself with gravity and a noble sedateness, as where he says: "In a false quarrel there is no true valour." And throughout the challenge scene he expresses himself with gentlemanly dignity and manly feeling; while we find from the remarks of the Prince upon his change of colour that he is as deeply hurt as he has temperately spoken. He characterises his own wit in its gentleness and gallantry towards women when he says to Beatrice's attendant: "A most manly wit, Margaret; it will not hurt a woman." There is heart in Benedick's playfulness. His love-making (when lovetaken) is as earnest as it is animated. That is a fine and fervent bit of his, at the close of his wooing scene with Beatrice, where she asks him if he will go with her to her uncle Leonato's to hear the news; he answers: "I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thine eyes; and moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle's.” Shakespeare has with lustrous perfection vindicated the sound sense and sweet heart that may accompany wit in his character of Benedick.

In that of Biron, in the play of "Love's Labour's Lost," the dramatist has given us another specimen of wit allied to scholarly elegance, and of humour conjoined with philosophical thought and reason. In Biron's first scene he utters a worthy sentence upon superficial acquirement, when he says:

Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,

That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks.

And he follows this up by a protest against those who gather all their knowledge from book-lore, to the cramping of originality of idea, and to the neglect of the larger wisdom that is to be gained from a perusal of the glorious volume of universal Nature herself. He observes :

Small have continual plodders ever won,
Save base authority from others' books.
These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights,
That give a name to every fixéd star,
Have no more profit of their shining nights

Than those that walk, and wot not what they are.

Biron shows his rational sense and unperverted taste when he abjures forced fruits and flowers, with delicacies out of season, declaring his preference for reasonable luxuries and natural delights. He justly asks :

Why should I joy in an abortive birth?

At Christmas I no more desire a rose,

Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows:

But like of each thing that in season grows.

And this man-this Lord Biron who, upon fitting occasion, can speak with so sedate and staid a judgment and philosophical a reason is a lively thinker, a witty talker, and a most vivacious companion. His social qualities are thus delightfully described :

A merrier man,

Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal.
His eye begets occasion for his wit;
For every object that the one doth catch,
The other turns to a mirth-moving jest ;
Which his fair tongue (conceit's expositor)
Delivers in such apt and gracious words,
That agéd ears play truant at his tales;
And younger hearings are quite ravishéd,
So sweet and voluble is his discourse.

What a worthy chronicle of a worthy intellect ! Blessing and gratitude await our own British Poet of Poets! for having so gloriously proved the natural alliance that exists between true philosophy and true wit; for showing us that mirth and jesting-far from precluding grave thought, sound reason, and sound sense-may be made their pleasant and gracious vehicle; and for showing us that high spirits, cheerful words, and a hopeful heart are but among the best forms of purest wisdom.

Again, blessings and all loving gratitude to the memory of WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE!

LIFE IN LONDON.

VII. CIRCLES OF SOCIETY.

HAT amiable man, the late Sir Thomas Talfourd, said that the great fault of our artificial state of society-in the relations of class to class-is the want of sympathy. I will not moralise upon the fact which was pointed so impressively in this instance (for the sentiment was almost the last which Sir Thomas uttered)-a fact which everybody will admit, and set down to the account of everybody else. But I wish to ask, How can there be much sympathy where there is so much separation, and different classes of men and women know so little of one another? The present world is absurdly large, and it is impossible that we can have even a bowing acquaintance with every man and brother-not to say woman and sister-with whom we share in common. Of course we are supposed to sympathise, and many of us do, in an abstract way, and in reference to masses of people. There are many benevolent persons, indeed, desirous to do good in a practical way, whose difficulty is to find eligible objects for sympathy. With the best of intentions, it is difficult to discover many persons whom we love as well as ourselves, to say nothing of that polite preference for somebody else which is at once so desirable and so rare. Doubtless we should be able to count many more in either category if we could only make their acquaintance. But can we hope to find such treasures in distant and factious parts of the world, when we fail to find them in near and serious localities? There are practical reasons why many worthy persons in the Mountains of the Moon should not be able to claim our special affection ; but it is not quite so natural a state of things that so many kindred souls should dwell among us, it may be in the same city, and yet remain unknown to us. It may be that some of us are thoroughly selfish rascals, who care nothing about our neighbours except for what we can get out of them; but the main reason for the want of knowledge is that people live in different circles of society.

VOL. X., N.S. 1873.

Y Y