how little could be learned from it. The greater part consisted of wild conjectures, ingenious sophistries, or labored misinterpretations. Even the best, some dozen in number, with responsible names, are more calculated to show the research of the com weekly salary. Whether the great representative of Shakspeare, or the great little devil, produced the largest share of the receipts, it is impossible now to determine, but the combination was very successful. In all these cases, and in many similar ones, if there is any thing wrong in taste, or incon-mentators, than to explain the meaning of sistent in reality, the fault lies with the public rather than the manager. He is not likely to involve himself in questionable expedients, unless driven to them as a matter of commercial necessity. In one of Sir E. Bulwer's novels is a passage very applicable to the point we are now touching on, and though in a work of fancy, may be taken as an actual illustration: When I was a boy I went once to a theatre. The tragedy of Hamlet was performed, a play full of the noblest thoughts, the subtlest morality that exists upon the stage. The audience listened with attention, with admiration, with applause. But now an Italian mountebank appeared upon the stage-a man of extraordinary personal strength and sleight of hand. He performed a variety of juggling tricks, and distorted his body into a thousand surprising and unnatural postures. The audience were transported beyond themselves; if they had felt delight in Hamlet, they glowed with rapture at the mountebank. They had listened with attention to the lofty thought, but they were snatched from themselves by the mar vel of the strange posture.-Enough, said I; where is the glory of ruling men's minds and commanding their admiration, when a greater enthusiasm is excited by mere bodily agility than was kindled by the most wonderful emanations of a genius little less than divine ?"* A good many years ago I endeavored to make a collection of "Shakspeareana," including original authorities consulted by him, sources from whence he derived his plots, tracts, comments, essays, criticisms, and detached publications, relating to the mighty poet and his works. The collection was not confined to English writers only, but included many pieces in French, Italian, German, Spanish, Danish, and even Dutch. It was far from complete, but amounted to nearly eight hundred volumes. In bulk, a respectable-looking library, but in value, with few exceptions, contemptible. When all was brought together and examined, it was amazing to see how much time had been wasted on this mass of disquisition, and Eugene Aram, vol. i. ch. 5. the author; and all, with few exceptions, contain furious abuse of every body's work but their own. The most singular production in the entire lot was called Discoveries in Hieroglyphics, by R. Deverell, in six octavo volumes, (1813,) comprising editions, with original notes, of Hamlet, Lear, Othello, and Merchant of Venice. I never saw but this one copy, and have never noticed it in any catalogue since. The book was suppressed after a few had been circulated, either by the author or his family, who should have instituted a de lunatico inqui rendo, and have placed him in safe keeping. It is, altogether, the most incoherent and maddest concoction of nonsense I ever met with, and a unique literary curiosity of a strange species. Ben Jonson, who was a learned man, with a sufficient contempt (after the manner of collegians in general) for all who cannot boast of academic honors, happened to say of Shakspeare, his cotemporary, familiar associate, and tavern companion, that he had "small Latin and less Greek." In due time this was aggravated into "very little Latin and no Greek." And so the tale came down to later times, assisted by Milton, who spoke of Shakspeare as fancy's child, warbling his native wood-notes wild." This, the advocates of Shakspeare's want of learning, by a happy latitude of reasoning, declared was strong corroborative evidence that his scholarship extended not beyond his own language. Dr. Farmer, in 1767, was supposed to have clinched the question for ever by his well-known "Essay," which competent authority pronounced ex cathedra, to be "unanswerable," and thenceforth it became incorporated with all the variorum editions, as an indispensable illustration. So it was decreed that Shakspeare knew not even the rudiments of any language but English; that all his multiplied allusions to the ancient classics, with speeches almost verbatim from Plutarch and others, were drawn from English translations; and that the Latin, French, Italian, and even Spanish sentences | heard it, (were he in any company even of and phrases, scattered through his plays, had got in some how or other, nobody could tell how, why, or wherefore, except that it was quite certain he wrote them not, because he was incapable of so doing from utter ignorance. But as people began to direct more attention to Shakspeare, and look closely into his works, they also discovered that a vast proportion of the critical learning of the last age was flimsy and superficial; that of the two deductions stated above, the latter was ridiculous, if not impossible, and that Shakspeare, although not a profound scholar, like Jonson, had, nevertheless, a goodly smat tering of the humanities; and that his "little Latin and less Greek," lightly prized and lightly spoken of by his erudite associate and rival poet, had, nevertheless, carried him some way on the road to learning, and a tolerable distance from the starting-post of ignorance. There are not many students of Shakspeare in the present age who will be inclined to echo the opinion, that Dr. Farmer's Essay is unanswerable. There can be no doubt, says he, that Shakspeare used translations freely, which were ready to his hand. We can easily believe he did. In the beginning of his career he wrote for bread rather than for fame, and was obliged to work quickly to answer the current demand, as his reputation rose and the attraction of his plays increased. His memory was most retentive, and he naturally supplied it from the readiest and the easiest sources; but he could not copy from translations which were not in existence when he wrote, as we shall presently show, taking for our example one of the choice cases selected by Dr. Farmer. In 1586, Pierre Le Loier, wrote in French, a treatise called "Huit Livres des Spectres, &c., se montrant sensibles aux Hommes." This book was translated into English by Zachary Jones. At page 32 is a passage quoted by Dr. Farmer, in his "Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare," to prove, among other instances, his hypothesis, that Shakspeare knew no language but his mothertongue. The passage is as follows: The physician Scaliger writeth how he himself knew a gentleman, his neighbour, which had in him such an antipathy at the sound of a violl, that as soon as ever he the best sort,) and that either at table or elsewhere, he was constrayned to forsake the place and go away-." Note in margin :— of late in Devon, near Excester, who could "Another gentleman of this quality lived not endure the playing on a bagpipe." Now hear Dr. Farmer;- "In the Merchant of Venice, the Jew, as an apology for his cruelty to Antonio, rehearses many sympathies and antipathies, for which no reason can be rendered— 'Some love not a gaping pig, And others, when the bagpipe sings in the nose Cannot contain their urine for affection.' "This incident Dr. Warburton supposes to have been taken from Scaliger's Exercitations against Cardan, Narrabo tibi jocosam sympathiam Regali Vasconis Equitis. Is dum viverat audito Phormingis sono, urinam illico facere cogebatur.' And, proceeds the Doctor, to make the jocular story still more ridiculous, Shakspeare, I suppose, translated Phorminx by bagpipe. Here we seem fairly caught, for Scaliger's work was never, as the term goes done into English. But luckily in an old translation from the French of Peter Le Loier, entitled 'A Treatise of Spectres; or, Straunge Sights, Visions, have this identical story from Scaliger: and Apparitions appearing unto Men,' we and what is still more, a marginal note gives us, in all probability, the fact alluded to, as well as the word of Shakspeare:- Another gentleman of this quality lived of late in Devon, near Excester, who could not endure playing on a bagpipe. My edition, (adds Dr. Farmer in a note,) is in 4to. 1605, with an anonymous dedication to the king; the Devonshire story was, therefore, well known in the time of Shakspeare." Admirable reasoning, and inevitable conclusion! Now, mark how a simple fact shall put this down. No translation of Le Loier's book ever appeared, but this one by Zachary Jones, and that not before 1605. There were two editions of the Merchant of Venice, containing the passage referred to, printed in 1600. It is, therefore, clearly impossible, that a book written in 1600 could borrow any thing from one written five years later. Both these books were in Dr. Farmer's library, as appears by the sale catalogue, 1798; therefore he knew the fact, although he chose to Burke it. When men, otherwise rational, get fairly astride on a pet theory, they gallop away nearly as far, and quite as recklessly, as the "beggar on horseback," according to the old proverb. The pedigree of the interesting antipathy, | trial, and the memory of a dreaming life, which has caused all this discussion, is as terminated by the hands of justice on a clearly proved through the French, up to public scaffold.* the Latin progenitor, as if the registry had been extracted (and the fees duly paid) from the Herald's office; but for aught that Dr. Farmer shows to the contrary, Shakspeare adopted it from Le Loier or Scaliger, either of whose treatises he could read in the original as easily as the Master of Emmanuel himself. These Oxford and Cambridge illuminati are prone to think, that no man has any right to claim knowledge of Greek or Latin, unless he has A.M. or A.B. attached to his name. According to their doctrine, the degree alone legitimizes knowledge. The greater part of them grind for that same degree, plod through a prescribed course, and seldom look at any classic not included in the regular routine. And so they take high honors and pass for learned men. A friend of mine once quoted "Suetonius," a very common book, in conversation with a graduate of a college, and he frankly confessed to him he had never read that author; he was not in the course, and he had no time to go out of it. Many a "poor scholar" has a greater "bottom" of learning, as Dr. Johnson would have called it, than half the dignitaries with flowing robes and sounding titles. The principal of the College of Louvain, quoted by Goldsmith, is, perhaps, not a solitary case of the latter: Dr. Maginn, who handled Dr. Farmer's Essay very severely in a series of papers in Fraser's Magazine, (1839,) maintains that "Scaliger was much more read in the days of Elizabeth than any ordinary dipper into books in the present day may be inclined to imagine." Commenting on this same passage of Farmer's, which we have selected, he, at the same time quotes another from Love's Labor Lost, with a note by Warburton, (which Farmer has entirely passed over,) to show, as he does clearly, that it was far more probable Shakspeare had read Scaliger, than any thing adduced on the opposite side can prove he was unable to do so. Maginn appears to have been unacquainted with either Le Loier, or his translator, and, probably, had never seen or heard of the edition of the Merchant of Venice in 1600; consequently, he could not avail himself of the dates we have referred to above. This is to be regretted. An argument, or assertion, refuted by a fact, and proved to be impos sible, is strangled at once; whereas if only overthrown by superior logic it may " rise and fight again," according to Hudibras, and will always find advocates. There never was either case or character so utterly abandoned as to be "left alone in its glory," without a single supporter. It is useless to oppose reasoning to reasoning; the process is interminable. You may beat your man, but you will never finish him. He will return to the charge, again and again; you may knock his brains out long before he will confess that you have conquered him by argument. Your only chance of de * We do not infer from any of this, that there is not good sound learning in colleges; we only wish to show there may be some elsewhere, and that Shakspeare may have had a little. + If he is a Kaffir, he will survive even that, and Eugene Aram was master of nearly every known language, and profoundly skilled in logic, mathematics, philology, and antiquities. Scholars wrote to him from all parts prove, in opposition to Shakspeare, “that when of the world, and learned travellers came the brains are out, the man will (not always) die." to consult the obscure and humble student We have been assured by an officer of undoubted in his abode of lonely poverty; yet he had credibility, who served in the last Kaffir war, that some of the prisoners reported to be dying under never been within the walls of a college, eight or ten mortal wounds, including fractured and erected his pyramid of learning on a skulls, escaped to the bush, when supposed to be foundation created by himself. Equally sad unable to move, and were found in a day or two and extraordinary is the fact, that he left after as active and dangerous as ever. A Kaffir, unquestionably, is more difficult to kill than a cat, nothing behind him, save a defence " too inand has as many lives. Let those decide who can genious for truth," as was observed on his speak from practical experience. cisive victory is by facts. If you build a house upon a hill, there is a plain fact which nobody can dispute; but if you are rash enough to say, that is a good house, you are immediately told it is a bad one; and up springs a thirty years' war of controversy, likely to outlast both builder and edifice. In early life (I won't say how many years ago) I undertook to instruct the most determined matter-of-fact-man I ever knew, in mathematics, in return for a counter service. I had failed with two before, but they were imaginative, not practical, and I left them to their flights. At that time I was an enthusiast in mathematics, (which I have entirely lost since,) and rejoiced in the new subject. "This is the man I want," said I, "a reasoning being, who will be convinced by reason." I went to work, but to my utter amazement and horror, he broke down obstinately on the threshold. He never could be brought to understand or admit that a straight line was the shortest possible distance between two points. "It was an assumption," he said, "not a fact;" he "couldn't conceive it!" "Do not twoand-two make four ?" said I, "is not that a fact?" "No," replied he, "it is a mere conventional arrangement, accepted for convenience." I went on, hoping to convert him in time, but to every quod erat demonstrandum, he retorted, "Humbug! your reasonings. Give me facts." Poor fellow he got a fact soon after, and an astounding one, in the form of a grape-shot in the abdomen, in one of the battles in America, which wound up his earthly cogi tations in ten minutes. one, D to an argument, to cleave to it, as man and wife ought to do, "till death do us part." Dr. Maginn's three papers in refutation of Dr. Farmer are very logical, acute, and convincing. As far as argument can go, they are sufficient. If they do not thoroughly establish the learning of Shakspeare, they demolish the theories set up to prove his ignorance. They settle the question negatively, if not positively-a little too acrimonious in personal expression, the besetting sin of all controversialists, and a very supererogatory one when you are strong on the right side. Shave your opponent as closely as you like, but let your razor be as polished as it is keen. Violence and illtongued invective imply a conviction in your own mind of being in the wrong, and convey the same impression to the minds of all who read or listen. Dr. Johnson, sometimes, in the pride of argumentative superiority, used to take the wrong side on purpose, and when beaten, retreated on vehemence and abuse. "There's no reasoning with you, sir," said Goldsmith once, most happily, "when your pistol misses fire, you knock one down with the butt-end." Poor Maginn was a man of much scholastic acquirement-brilliant, witty, and acute. He was fond of Shakspeare, and wrote in Bentley's Miscellany a series of articles on some of his most prominent characters; in many respects they are among the best that have been written, but like all who have grappled with Shakspeare, he made mistakes, as we shall endeavor to show in two or three instances. He says, himself:— "I have been accused by some who have taken the trouble of reading these papers, that I am fond of paradoxes, and write not to comment upon Shakspeare, but to display ble side of every question. But I have given logical dexterity in maintaining the untenamy reasons, sound or unsound as they may be, for my opinions, which I have said, with old Montaigne, I do not pretend to be good, but to be mine." I once heard a very able logician handle the arguments of a subtle opponent one by and shiver them like glass, as I, and all the listeners thought, who were astonished at his powers of conviction, and wondered what his adversary could advance in reply. "He is floored," whispered one; "he has not a leg to stand on," murmured another. When his turn came, he looked thick and There is less logic than epigrammatic stolid, and said, with most imperturbable smartness in the last sentence. Extensive collectedness, "I have only this to observe indeed is the range, and thoroughly opposite -I differ with you, entirely." I thought if the views, which endless criticism has emthe other had knocked him on the head in- braced in examining the creations of Shakcontinently, and I had been on the inquest speare. Take the single character of Lady after, I should have found a verdict of justi- Macbeth as a sample. Dr. Johnson profiable foolicide. From that moment I deter- nounces her an ogress, Mrs. Jameson is inmined, whenever I got hold of a fact in reply | clined to make her amiable, Dr. Maginn de While closely investigating the character of Iago, after some preliminary reasoning, he draws this conclusion: fends her, and Mrs. Siddons, her ablest rep- | this passion as directed against an individresentative, had this idea of her personal ual." attributes, "that she was a little woman with fair complexion and sandy colored hair." We should rather have drawn her lofty in stature, saturnine in aspect, and with raven tresses. In a very lively paper on the character of lago, Dr. Maginn says, "He is the sole exemplar of studied personal revenge in the plays." Shylock occurs to him immediately, but he says, "In Shylock, the passion is hardly personal against his intended victim, the hatred is national and sectarian." Let us try this opinion by the text, the only sound way of finding out the real character. Shylock, speaking of the man he loathes, Antonio, thus expresses himself: "I hate him, for he is a Christian." So far the feeling is, as Dr. Maginn calls it, national and sectarian. But what fol lows: "But more for that in low simplicity, He lends out money gratis, and brings down I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him; (Even there where merchants most do congre gate) On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift, Here is one line for the sectarian feeling, and ten most pungent ones for the individual hatred, arising from distinctly individual injury. "We accordingly find that Iago engages in his hostilities against Othello, more to show his talents than for any other purpose. He proudly lauds his own powers of dissim ulation, which are to be now displayed with so much ability "When my outward action doth demonstrate The native act and figure of my heart, In compliment extern, 'tis not long after But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at. I am not what I am."" According to Dr. Maginn's showing, he makes his revenge subservient to his dissimulation, rather than his dissimulation the means through which to obtain his revenge. Now, we take the latter to the fact, as proved by the context. He does not speak of his talent for duplicity at all, until reply. ing to a remark of Roderigo, in answer to his direct question, after stating his hatred of Othello: "Iag.-Now, sir, be judge yourself, Whether I in any just term am affined Rod.-I would not follow him, then! I follow him, to serve my turn upon him. Further on, in speaking of the motives which spur Iago on in his deadly course, Dr. Maginn says, on the rumor that Othello had from private dislike of Cæsar, than public given him cause to be jealous :— Then we have Cassius, who struck more love of Rome. Brutus abhorred the dictator, but Cassius hated the man, and sought revenge for personal injury. And what becomes of Don John, in Much Ado About Nothing, who weaves a tangled web of mischief to be revenged on Claudio, for, as he supposes, unfairly supplanting him with his brother "That young start-up," says he, "hath all the glory of my overthrow; if I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way." And again," I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection, ranges evenly with mine. Only to despite them, I will endeavor any thing." If this is not unmixed personal revenge, what is it? And yet Dr. Maginn reiterates, Iago is the only example in Shakspeare of "It is plain that he does not pretend to lay any great stress upon this, nor can we suppose that even if it were true, it would deeply affect him; but he thinks lightly of women in general, and has no respect whatever for his wife." The latter part of this opinion may be correct, but it astonishes us not a little that a perspicuous writer, with the text before him, should fall into such an error as to say Iago lays no great stress on his jealousy, and that it scarcely affects him. How does the case stand by his own words? stating the rumor he says:— "I know not if 't be true, After |