P. 50, 1. 12. As Hamlet's melancholy mood we quit For Hal's light badinage and Falstaff's wit. How beautifully Goethe, in his Wilhelm Meister, delineates the character of Hamlet! It is too long to give in a note, but I have ventured to introduce the concluding part of this admirable exposition. "To me it is clear that Shakspeare meant in the present case to represent the effects of a great action laid upon a soul unfit for the performance of it. In this view, the whole piece seems to me to be composed. An oak-tree is planted in a costly jar which should have borne only pleasant flowers in its bosom : the roots expand; the jar is shivered. A lovely, pure, noble, and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve which forms a hero, shrinks beneath a burden it cannot bear and must not cast away. All duties are holy for him; the present is too hard. Impossibilities have been required of him; not in themselves impossibilities, but such for him. He winds and turns and torments himself; he advances and recoils; is ever put in mind, ever puts himself in mind; at last, does all but lose his purpose from his thoughts, yet still without recovering his peace of mind." P. 51, 1.3. One like a meteor-Nations gazed, admired. Byron. P. 53, 1. 4. Each gentle verse that Pope and Harley wrote. How beautiful and unaffected are the following lines in the Epistle addressed by Pope to the Earl of Oxford : "And sure if aught below the seats divine The rage of power, the blast of public breath, And yet there are writers who have asserted that Pope was no Poet, that he was a mere versifier, and deficient in natural feeling! P. 53, 1. 21. That" old man eloquent," whose mind was stored. Burke. NOTES TO FIFTH EPISTLE, ON PERFECTIBILITY. P. 57, 1. 15. There may be planets in which beings dwell. At once presented to their glad survey." ROGERS' Pleasures of Memory. P. 57, 1. 20. The rainbow-circled glory-throne. "And there was a rainbow round about the throne in sight like to an emerald."-REV. iv. 3. P. 57, 1. 22. As flame when touching flame its strength combines. "All that I shall now say of it is, that a good man is united to God as a flame touches a flame and combines into splendour and glory; so is the spirit of a man united into Christ by the Spirit of God.”—JEREMY TAYLOR. P. 59, 1. 19. Historians fancy that a king is born To trouble men, like great Astolfo's horn. "Dico che 'l corno è di si orribil suono Ch' ovunque s'ode fa fuggir la gente; Non può trovarsi al mondo un cuor si buono Che possa non fuggir come lo sente." ARIOSTO, Canto xv. stanza 15. P. 59, 1. 21. Princes will have their toys. Anastasius exclaims, in anticipation of his future grandeur :-"Chill of age nor of climate shall stop me; I shall grasp at all—become another Potemkin, rule an empire, have a court; alternate between arranging fêtes and planning campaigns; pay my card-money in diamonds; make mosaic-work of provinces ; plant orange-trees and citron-groves on hanging terraces of icicles; and, when tired of illuminations and the Neva, set fire on the Bosphorus, and transport the seat of empire from the vicinity of the White Sea to the shores of the Black Sea.' Memoirs of Anastasius, vol. iii. p. 16. Forbes, in his "Oriental Memoirs," (vol. iii. p. 284,) that teem with description of Oriental magnificence, speaking of Asufud Dowlah, son of the famous Nabob of Oude, says: "I saw him, in the midst of this precious treasure, handling his jewels, that amounted to eight millions sterling, as a child does his toys." P. 61, 1. 9. Vain hope! still Shakspeare towers unmatch'd. When Campbell, in his noble poem, "The Pleasures of Hope," with all the sanguine enthusiasm of youth, anticipates the improvement of mankind, he yet admits that Shakspeare will never be equalled: 66 "Yes, there are hearts, prophetic hope may trust, That slumber yet in uncreated dust, Ordain'd to wake the adoring sons of earth P. 62, 1. 7. Many through gay saloons who laughing pass, and They went wandering from chamber to chamber, hall to hall, gallery to gallery—all without bounds or limit; all distinguishable by H the same lowering gloom, all adorned with the same awful grandeur, all traversed by persons in search of repose and consolation, but who sought them in vain; for every one carried within him a heart tormented in flames."-Vathek, p. 217. P. 63, 1. 15. Even gravitation, of material laws The rule, may sink into a wider cause. "Perhaps the day may come when even gravitation, no longer regarded as an ultimate principle, may be resolved into a yet more general cause, embracing every law that regulates the material world."— SOMERVILLE on the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, p. 409. NOTES ON THE SIXTH EPISTLE TO A FRIEND IN TOWN. P. 70, 1. 22. When will it reappear? alas! obscured Italy may still boast her Guerazzi, Manzoni, Silvio Pellico. Well might they exclaim in the language of one of their finest modern Latin authors, 0 O patria! O longum felix longumque quieta P. 72, 1. 3. Opposing, as repels the surge a tower FRACASTORIUS. Of strength, the earth-o'errushing papal power. "Si on considère que c'est dans un temps où presque toutes les nations tremblaient devant la puissance pontificale, que les Vénetiens surent tenir leur clergé dans la dépendance et braver souvent les censures ecclésiastiques et les interdits sans encourir jamais aucun reproche sur la pureté de leur foi, on sera forcé de reconnaître que cette république avait devancé de loin les autres peuples dans cette partie de la science du gouvernement. |