Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449

'Well,' cried the sultan, 'he certainly seems to take a great interest in it himself; and he may understand it perfectly, for aught I know; but I wish he would read aloud. I should like to hear him. Will you be so good as to tell him so?' he added, addressing the patriarch.

The venerable Mar Yusef was puzzled, and, as people often do when they are puzzled, he made a bow, but could think of nothing to say. Titus, however, promptly dropped on his knees between the bear and the sultan; and addressing the latter, he said: 'Your sublime highness will hear him presently; be pleased to give him a little time. Let him not be harshly judged, if he is a little timid and shy. This is his first attempt in public.'

As he said this, the deacon saw the twinkle of the Jew's eye over the sultan's shoulder. It was only for a moment, and nobody but Titus himself knew that he had seen it at all, so intently did he seem to be occupied in comforting and encouraging—perhaps we should say exciting, his pupil. The bear, however, being disappointed line after line, and page after page, and only stimulated and irritated by the scent and the slight taste which he could get by thrusting the tip of his tongue through his muzzle, began to growl most awfully, as he still went on mechanically, line after line, and turned the leaves with increased rapidity and vehemence. This continued for some time, until the pupil was evidently getting into a passion, and the tutor was growing rather nervous, when the sultan shewed a disposition to speak, which Titus most thankfully interpreted as an intimation that the experiment had been carried far enough. He instantly quieted his pupil, not so much by the order which he gave, as by shewing him a honey-cake, which nobody else saw, handed the chain to Timothy, and prepared to listen.

'As I observed before,' said the sultan, 'he certainly does seem to take a vast interest in it himself; and I daresay he understands it: but as to his elocution, I must say that it seems to me somewhat inarticulate.' The patriarch was puzzled again, and again he bowed, lower than before. The Jew chuckled, and whispered something in the sultan's ear. But Titus was not disconcerted. Falling again on his knees, he exclaimed: 'Pardon me, your sublime highness, we consider him a remarkably good reader, an animal of excellent parts, and a pupil who does us great credit. It is true, as your sublime highness's discrimination has observed, that his enunciation, even to those who know the language, may have some appearance of indistinctness, because he is defective in the vowel-points; but we cannot help it, for all our books are unpointed. In this, which, indeed, we consider a matter of little importance, we do not pretend to compete with the Jews, who teach theirs from pointed books. If your sublime highness ever heard a bear read more articulately than this one, it must have been one of theirs; and if you would have your own perfected in that particular, you must put it into their hands.' The sultan stared at the deacon; and the Jew eyed him over the sultan's shoulder with fierce alarm. But the hands of Titus were folded on his breast, and his head was bowed down on his hands.

'Well,' said the sultan to the patriarch, after a pause, during which it was obvious that some things were passing through his mind, of which he said nothing, 'I thank you for the pains you have taken; and although I cannot say that I quite understand the matter now, yet if I had known six weeks ago as much as I do at present, I would not have troubled you. If you are ever in want of any help or protection, remember, as I shall, that you have obliged me.'

The patriarch bowed. The sultan rose and retired, resolved that his first business should be to come to a full explanation with his doctor; and accordingly, a summons for the Israelite was instantly issued. Very long it seemed to the sultan—although, in fact, it was only half an hour—before the vizier came to report, that the doctor was nowhere to be found.

'Well,' said the sultan, 'I do not much wonder at that. I always thought him a wise man, and he is certainly no fool to get out of the way now. But, at the same time, let strict search be made; and also bring me the chief rabbi.'

In the confusion occasioned by the breaking up of the company, the tutor and his pupil—the latter of whom had naturally dropped into the less ostentatious posture of a quadruped—were forgotten, or at least overlooked, by the crowd of courtiers, who rushed to congratulate Mar Yusef, or laid their heads together, to whisper their surprise or their suspicions. Titus, therefore, having briefly given directions to Timothy to take care that the book was removed, and to see the patriarch home, and make an excuse for his staying behind, slipped with his amiable charge through a side-door into the garden, where he seated himself on a bench, while his companion stood opposite to him on his hind legs, looking wistfully, he almost thought reproachfully, in his face. In truth, Titus was conscious that he had tried the temper of his pupil, and was afraid to let him loose before company, or, indeed, to let him go into company at all, until he should have brought him into good-humour. He had provided himself with ample means of doing this; and having produced more than one honey-cake, and several other good things, and laid them on the bench beside him, he did not hesitate to unmuzzle his friend, and a merry meal they made together.

If the master was rendered happy by the issue of an experiment which had been matter of such great and long anxiety, the pupil was also raised to a state of the highest possible good-humour, by being at once relieved from restraint and hunger. He looked cheerily about him; seemed as if for the first time he recognised his old haunts; gamboled through the now deserted hall and passages; and, before he had been missed by anybody, found his way, by a short cut, to his own rug in the sultan's apartment.

For a moment, indeed, while occupied in anticipating the explanation which he had resolved to extort from his doctor, the sultan, like his courtiers, had forgotten his favourite; but now the meeting was most cordial on both sides. The sultan seemed determined to make up for his neglect; and the favourite to shew, that neither scholarship, nor the discipline requisite for obtaining it, had diminished his social affections or companionable qualities.

At length the rabbi arrived. He had, indeed, been a little longer than was necessary on the way, because he had found some means of persuading the messenger to let him call on two or three friends as he came along. He did not lose much time by this, however; his only object being to ask them, to what extent they could help him in case the loan should be very large. Satisfied on this point, and preoccupied by the thoughts which had suggested the inquiry, he stood before the sultan. Great, therefore, was his surprise, when his sublime highness, instead of saying a word about money-matters, briefly, but clearly, explained to him the nature of the business in which his service was required.

'Your sublime highness is pleased to jest with your servant,' said the rabbi, as soon as he could command breath enough to utter the words.

'Not at all,' replied the sultan; 'you will find me quite in earnest, I assure you. He reads, and, I am told, reads as well as can be expected without the points; now you must teach him to read with them.'

The rabbi was utterly confounded. He could only bow down his head, wondering what the sultan could mean, and what he would say next, and whether it would throw any light on what he had said already. So his sublime highness continued, with some asperity: 'Do not think to deceive me. I know all about the matter. You can do it, and you had better not hesitate; for I am in no humour to be trifled with. I gave the Christians six weeks, and I'll give you the same. Don't answer, but go, and he shall be sent to you.'

The unhappy rabbi returned home in a state of bewilderment. He sent for some of his friends to consult with, most of whom were as much surprised as he had been, when they learned the nature of the business which had produced the summons. Only one of them, who happened to be a friend of the missing doctor, seemed to know anything about the matter; and he could not throw much light upon it. He could only tell them, for their comfort, that it was a very serious affair, and they must mind what they were about.

It would be only tiresome, if it were possible, to particularise all the suggestions and discussions which ensued. They were still going on when the bear arrived, and was duly installed in an apartment which had been prepared for him, as well as it could be on such short notice; for all agreed, that he must be treated with great care and attention, not only in order to propitiate him, but because it might be dangerous to let him return in worse condition than he came. So neither trouble nor cost was spared to make him comfortable; and very comfortable he was: supplied with every luxury, crammed with dainties, and petted in every conceivable way. But whatever progress he might make in the study of mankind, and in other branches of useful knowledge, it was plain that he was making none in that particular branch of learning for which he had been sent to school. His instructors did not know how to deal with him. He was on easy terms with all about him, would play with anybody, and quarrelled with nobody; but learn he would not. When they held a book before him, he thrust his nose into the cream-bowl; when they spoke of Pathach and Segol, he shut one eye, and munched figs; and when, 'as a bird each fond endearment tries,' they set up a stave which might have made the very learned the Masorites to dance for joy, in the hope that instinctively, or by mere love of imitation, he might be led to join in the chorus, he only threw himself on his back, and fairly roared them down.

Sensible of all this, and of its probable consequences, the instructors had not been idle in another direction. They had used their utmost endeavours to learn how the pupil had been dealt with by his former tutor. But all their inquiries were fruitless. Titus had kept his secret so effectually, that even Timothy knew little, if anything, more than other people; or, in other words, more than had been transacted before the sultan and his court. But in collecting all such information as could be gleaned, they were indefatigable, and were scrupulously careful to imitate everything which had been done, not knowing what hidden virtue there might be in things apparently trivial. They provided a great book and a desk; and did, and were prepared to do, all that, so far as they could learn, had been done before. And so matters went on, until the time came for them to produce their pupil.

The sultan was led, by various considerations, to think that it would be better to have the examination rather more private than the former one had been; and, accordingly, at the time appointed, the rabbi and his companions were brought into his private apartment. They had no hope that the book and desk—which, however, they had taken care to provide—would be wanted by their pupil; and indeed for some time past their thoughts had been turned from any attempts at instruction, and employed in framing an apology, in doing which they flattered themselves that they had succeeded tolerably well.

The pupil, who had grown corpulent under his late course of treatment, did not at first raise his lazy, half-shut eyes high enough from the ground to see the desk and open book, which were clever imitations, if not quite facsimiles of forms deeply impressed on his memory, and calculated to produce very stimulating recollections. As soon as they caught his eye, he seemed to be seized with sudden passion, dashed at the book, and overthrew the whole concern. Fiercely did he thrust his nose and paws between the leaves, and turn them, and tear them, and trample them. At length, exhausted by his exertions—to say nothing of his having previously had more exercise than usual—he waddled away to his well-known rug, absolutely declined all invitations either to work or play, and lay there watching the company through his half-shut eyes, in a state of stupid repose, which those who had just watched his effervescence did not care to interrupt.

'Well,' said the sultan to the rabbi and his friends, 'you are a strange set of people. When I put my bear into your hands, he read fluently, and con amore; and all you had to do, was to perfect his articulation. Instead of that, you bring him back fat, stupid, and savage, and so far from reading better, unable to read at all. It would serve you right, if I were to hang the whole set of you, and confiscate all your goods; but I am a merciful man, and will be content with banishment.'

So an order was immediately issued for banishing the Jews from the dominions of the sultan; and they all made off as fast as they could, not knowing that their own countryman had been at the bottom of all, or having any idea of the explanation which is here laid before the reader.

THE ZODIACAL LIGHT

There is a certain degree of satisfaction to the inquiring mind in knowing that, even in these days of aptness for discovering and explaining everything, there yet remains something to be found out; something to excite speculation and recompense research. Such a subject is the zodiacal light, which, for nearly two centuries past, has at different times occupied the attention of astronomers and other observers of celestial phenomena, though it is only of late years that the theories concerning it have acquired anything like a precise character. Many ingenious hypotheses have been thrown out, which may perhaps be accepted as steps towards a true explanation; and while waiting the result of further inquiry, we shall endeavour to make our readers acquainted with the interesting phenomenon.

The zodiacal light is a peculiar brightness, pyramidal or wedge-like in form, seen at certain periods of the year in the eastern or western sky, before sunrise and after sunset. Its direction is in the line of the zodiac, whence its name—not perpendicular to the horizon, but at a varying angle, being in the spring from 60 to 70 degrees. The base of the wedge, which has a breadth generally of from 10 to 12 degrees, is below, and the sides rise in a line, curving outwards, to the apex, but so vague and diffuse as to be frequently indefinable. In our latitudes, it is best seen at or just after the equinoxes; before sunrise in autumn, and after sunset in spring; and becomes invisible as twilight increases, or if the moon shines; the light even of Venus and Jupiter is sufficient to render its discovery difficult. It is brightest at the base, and grows fainter the further it stretches from the horizon, vanishing entirely at the point. Unpractised observers would be apt to overlook it altogether, and those accustomed to watch the heavens are at times obliged to fix one eye on a dark space of sky, while they search for the light with the other, and discover it only by the contrast. A stratum of black cloud resting on the horizon often affords a means of detection, as the light can then be seen shooting from it with comparative distinctness. The soft, clear atmosphere which usually precedes or follows rain, is very favourable to a view of the light.

The luminous wedge varies in length with the progress of the seasons: sometimes but little more than its point is visible; at others, it is seen extending over a space of 120 degrees. Astronomically speaking, the axis of the zodiacal light is said to lie in the plane of the solar equator, with an angle of more than 7 degrees to the ecliptic, which it consequently intersects, the points of intersection becoming its nodes, and these nodes are the parts through which the earth passes in March and September. The light travels forward along the zodiacal signs from Gemini to Cancer and Leo from August to November, keeping pace with the sun. It grows dim towards the end of November, and fades more and more until January; but while this decrease has been going on in the east, and in the morning, the light has presented itself with increasing brightness in the west, and in the evening, and pursues its course until the end of February at about the same rate of motion. In March, it is slow, and travels through not more than one sign, and fades in April, and is lost in May, to reappear again at the end of summer, and perform the same route.

Lengthened twilight is not favourable to the appearance of the zodiacal light; it can, therefore, be observed successfully in the temperate latitudes only by patient and long-continued watching. But in tropical regions, the deep azure of the sky, and the brief twilight, give it a distinctness and luminosity never witnessed elsewhere. In Egypt, we are told it is clearly 'visible every night, except when the light of the moon is too great, from January to June;' and in India its appearance is described as that of 'a pyramid of faint aurora-borealis like light' usually preceding the dawn. Humboldt tells us, that he has seen it shine with greater brightness than the Milky Way, from different parts of the coast of South America, and from places on the Andes more than 13,000 feet above the sea-level.

'Those who have dwelt long,' he writes, 'in the zone of palms, must retain a pleasing remembrance of the mild radiance of this phenomenon, which, rising pyramidally, illumines a portion of the unvarying length of the tropical nights.' And once, during a voyage from Lima to Mexico, he saw it in greater magnificence than ever before. 'Long narrow clouds, scattered over the lovely azure of the sky, appeared low down in the horizon, as if in front of a golden curtain, while bright varied tints played from time to time on the higher clouds: it seemed a second sunset. Towards that side of the heavens, the light diffused appeared almost to equal that of the moon in her first quarter.'

The zodiacal light can hardly fail of having been observed by astronomers in the past ages of the world; but the earliest known mention of it occurs in the Britannia Baconica, published by Childrey in 1661. The writer says: 'There is another thing which I recommend to the observation of mathematical men—which is, that in February, and for a little before and a little after that month—as I have observed for several years together—about six in the evening, when the twilight hath almost deserted the horizon, you shall see a plainly discernible way of the twilight, striking up towards the Pleiads, and seeming almost to touch them. It is so observed any clear night, but it is best illæ nocte. There is no such way to be observed at any other time of the year. But what the cause of it in nature should be, I cannot yet imagine, but leave it to further inquiry.' The further inquiry followed soon afterwards, for Cassini, the eminent French astronomer, having carefully observed the phenomenon from 1683 to 1688, communicated the results to the Académie des Sciences. Some of his views and determinations were well founded; and from them we gather that the zodiacal light was nearly or quite the same in his day as at present. Others also devoted considerable attention to it, and noticed the variations in brightness in different years, which subsequent observations have verified. Since then, it has been made more or less a subject of investigation by modern astronomers, and has been observed in many parts of the world; the first observations in the southern hemisphere being those made by Professor Smyth at the Cape of Good Hope, from 1843 to 1845. In that latitude, the zodiacal light is best seen in spring evenings, at an angle of 30 degrees, visible long after sunset; its opposite peak is discernible at daybreak, but has scarcely come into view before the rising sun overpowers it. In autumn, the reverse takes place; the best appearance is in the morning.

To understand what is meant by the 'opposite peak,' we are to regard the zodiacal light, of which we see only one end in our latitudes, as a body extending all round the sun in the same form, presenting at a distance the appearance of one of those flat elongated oval nebulæ seen in the heavens. Its direction is at right angles to that of the sun's rotation, a straight line drawn from either pole of the great luminary divides it in the centre. From its outline resembling that of a lens in section, it is frequently described as a 'cosmical body of lenticular form.'

From this account of what the zodiacal light appears to be, we proceed to consider what it is. Some inquirers—arguing from the 'nebular theory,' which assumes the formation of the several planets, one after another, from nebulous matter—have supposed the zodiacal light to be a remnant of that matter yet unconcentrated. In this view, it may be a nebula, brightest in the centre, as is the case with most, and fainter towards the margin. According to Humboldt, 'we may with great probability attribute the zodiacal light to the existence of an extremely oblate ring of nebulous matter, revolving freely in space between the orbits of Venus and Mars.' On several occasions he witnessed its fluctuations, night after night, from the plains of South America, shewing itself at times greatly collapsed or condensed, with intermittences of vividness and faintness, in the course of a few minutes, as is observed of the aurora. The light of the stars, of even the fifth or sixth magnitudes, can be seen through it: the same has been remarked of comets; and it is known also that the tails of comets undergo frequent flashings or pulsations, so that the two phenomena may be analogous in character. It is necessary, however, to distinguish the fluctuations from such effects as may be produced by movements in the lower strata of the atmosphere.

Mairan, who wrote in 1731, was of opinion that the zodiacal light consisted of particles thrown off from the sun by its rapid rotation, or a species of atmosphere peculiar to the central orb. Others have supposed the luminosity to be composed of 'revolving planetary particles,' shining by a direct or reflected light. But, according to Professor Olmsted, of Yale College, Massachusetts, it is something which has a motion of its own around the sun, notwithstanding that the general steadiness of its movements had warranted the notion that it was in some way attached to the body of the sun itself. Olmsted's conclusions are drawn from a diligent observation of the light during a period of six years, and are on this account, as well as from his scientific reputation, entitled to respect. He states the light to be, in constitution, colour, and density, similar to that of the tail of a comet, the portion nearest the sun being brightest, and both admitting of stars being seen through them. We may, therefore, infer it to be a nebulous ring surrounding the sun, in the same way that the magnificent rings of Saturn surround that planet. Of such nebulæ as this there are from 2000 to 3000 visible in the regions of space, compared with which the dimension of ours is insignificant: at the same distance, and sought for with the same instruments, it would be invisible.

In one point, Professor Olmsted's views are particularly interesting, as, out of one mysterious phenomenon, he endeavours to explain another, and inquires: 'Whether or not the zodiacal light is the origin of the meteoric showers of November and August, and especially those of November?' Many readers know that for some years past great numbers of falling-stars, or showers of meteors, have been observed periodically in November: the fall seen in the United States in 1834—when, as is estimated, more than 240,000 stars fell as thick as snow-flakes, in the space of nine hours—being the most remarkable hitherto known. The explanation is, that the zodiacal light is a nebulous body revolving round the sun, and arrives at its aphelion on the 13th November in that part of the earth's orbit which the earth then reaches, and, coming into contact with our atmosphere, portions of the nebulous matter are detached, and, taking fire as they pass through, appear to us as shooting-stars. This explanation of the phenomenon in question is one not hastily conceived; the reasoning on which it is founded is altogether satisfactory, as well with regard to the movement of the nebulous matter, as to that of the earth.

Professor Olmsted, in a communication addressed to the 'American Association for the Advancement of Science,' sums up his views as follows:

'1. The zodiacal light, as we have found, in our inquiry into its nature and constitution, is a nebulous body.

'2. It has a revolution round the sun.

'3. It reaches beyond and lies over the earth's orbit at the time of the November meteors, and makes but a small angle with the ecliptic.

'4. Like the nebulous body, its periodic time is commensurable with that of the earth, so as to perform a certain whole number of revolutions while the earth performs one, and thus to complete the cycle in one year, at the end of which the zodiacal light and the earth return to the same relative position in space. This necessarily follows from the fact, that at the same season of the year it occupies the same position one year with another, and the same now as when Cassini made his observations nearly 170 years ago.

'5. In the meteoric showers of November, the meteors are actually seen to come from the extreme portions of the zodiacal light, or rather a little beyond the visible portions.'

There is much that is suggestive in this summary, and, as we said at the commencement, the subject is one of a nature to stimulate inquiry and research, and to lead to further explanations of cosmical phenomena. M. Mathieson's observations, published in the Comptes Rendus of the Académie des Sciences for 1843, shew, that when tested with the thermo-multiplier, the zodiacal light was found to radiate heat as well as light—a fact which, if further verified, will support the evidence in favour of an independent luminous ring.

WHO WROTE SHAKSPEARE?

Thus asks Mrs Kitty in High Life Below Stairs, to which his Grace my Lord Duke gravely replies: 'Ben Jonson.' 'O no,' quoth my Lady Bab: 'Shakspeare was written by one Mr Finis, for I saw his name at the end of the book!' and this passes off as an excellent joke, and never fails to elicit the applause of the audience; but still the question remains unanswered: Who wrote Shakspeare? a question, we humbly think, which might be made the theme for as much critical sagacity, pertinacity, and pugnacity, as the almost equally interesting question, who wrote Homer? In the former case, the question is certainly in one respect more simple, for the recognised plays and poems that go by Shakspeare's name are—at least by far the larger portion—unquestionably from one and the same pen; while Homer, poor, dear, awful, august, much-abused shade! has been torn by a pack of German wolves into fragments, which it puzzles the lore and research of Grote and Muir to patch together again. Even Mr Grote seems disposed to admit, that while the Odyssey may pass muster as one continuous poem, whatever was the name of the author, the greater Iliad must be broken up at least into an Iliad and an Achilleid, by different rhapsodists; and though Colonel Muir stands stoutly on the other side, the restoration of the unity of Homer may, even with us sober-minded thinkers, take ten times the years it took to capture Troy; while with the German Mystics and Mythists, the controversy may last till they have to open their bewildered and bewildering eyes upon the realities of another world.

So far, therefore, the question is limited, for we are entitled to assume, what no one at this time of day dreams of disputing, that Hamlet and his fellows are not only the productions of one mind, but are beyond comparison the greatest productions which man's intellect, not divinely inspired, has yet achieved. The question therefore is—who wrote them? With the exception of Homer, who lived before the time of written history, and Junius, who purposely and successfully shrouded himself in obscurity, there has, perhaps, been no great writer who has not in his life, his letters, or his sayings, more or less identified himself with the productions of his pen. Take Walter Scott, for instance; or Byron, or Addison, or Dryden; or, to go still earlier, take Ben Jonson, or Kit Marlowe, or Geoffrey Chaucer, and each and all of them have external marks by which we could assign the authorship, even if the production had been published anonymously. Try Shakspeare's plays by the same test, and suppose Hamlet, Macbeth, &c., had been successively published after the fashion of Junius, and what critic of any age would ever have ascribed them to William Shakspeare?

This may appear uncandid and unfair. It may be said, that Shakspeare lived in a time when letter-writing and letter-preserving were comparatively infrequent, and that we have no right to deprive him of his authorship, any more than we should have had to deprive Dr Johnson of Rasselas, if he had not had the good-fortune of a Boswell to record his sayings. So we humbly think it would, had Shakspeare, like Homer, been wholly unknown, and every record of him lost; we should then, as in the case of Homer, have judged exclusively from the internal evidence of the works themselves, and formed a brilliant ideal picture of what the astonishing author must have been in his daily walk, correspondence, and conversation. But, unfortunately, enthusiasm worked up to its pitch, sweeping the clouds for a bird's-eye view of the high pinnacle of human greatness commensurate with the 'local habitation and the name' of such a genius, is at once 'cabined, cribbed, confined,' by the authentic recorded whatabouts, whenabouts, and whereabouts of William Shakspeare, actor, owner, purchaser, and chattels and messuage devisor whilom of the Globe Theatre, Surrey-side; item of the Blackfriars, Fleet Street; and ultimately of Stratford-on-Avon, 'gent,' husband of Anne Hathaway, to whom he devises his second-best bed. On the one hand, research has traced his life from the cradle to the grave, and by means of tradition, legal documents, records, and inscriptions, formed a very accurate skeleton biography; while, on the other hand, with the single exception of Ben Jonson, to be noticed hereafter, records and even tradition are silent upon his walk and conversation; and though his signature has been several times disinterred, his whole correspondence, if he ever wrote a letter, has sunk like lead beneath the dark waters of oblivion; indeed, even the single signature as yet discovered unconnected with business documents—namely, the 'Willm

Shakspere' on the volume of Montaigne—is not preceded by any remark whatever, by any sentence that might give a faint echo of Hamlet. Now this, to say the least, is singular to the very last degree. The unsurpassed brilliancy of the writer throws not one single spark to make noticeable the quiet uniform mediocrity of the man. Is it more difficult to suppose that Shakspeare was not the author of the poetry ascribed to him, than to account for the fact, that there is nothing in the recorded or traditionary life of Shakspeare which in any way connects the poet with the man? It will not do to use the common hackneyed expression, that Shakspeare had a 'genius so essentially dramatic, that all other writers the world has seen have never approached him in his power of going out of himself.' Even the inspired writers of Scripture have their style and their expressions modified, and adapted to the peculiar idiosyncrasy and accidental position of the respective men; and taking human nature as we find it, we think it much easier to suppose that Shakspeare never once appears personally in his dramas, because his interest in them was not personal, but pecuniary. William Shakspeare, the man, was comparatively well known. He was born in Stratford-on-Avon, of respectable parentage; he married Anne Hathaway; had children; apparently became unsettled; went to London to push his fortune; made a deal of money by theatrical speculations, and by the profits of certain plays, of which he was reputed to be the author; then retired quietly to the country, and was heard of no more, excepting that a few years afterwards old Aubrey states that 'Shakspeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry-meeting, and, it seems, drank too hard, for Shakspeare died of a fever there contracted.' Brandish not thy dagger, Melpomene, at this profanation! The scandal is not ours, but Aubrey's, Shakspeare's earliest biographer, but who did not write till forty-six years after his death. His name and signature are connected with the buying and selling of land and theatrical shares, and such-like commonplace transactions; and his last will and testament, with which everybody is familiar, is as plain and prosaic as if it had been the production of a pig-headed prerogative lawyer. Now, in all this we see a sensible, sagacious, cautious, persevering man, who certainly was free from the rashness and (excepting the closing scene, if old Aubrey is to be believed) rakish extravagance too often characteristic of genius at any time, and perhaps particularly so of Shakspeare's time. It is apparent that Shakspeare, at least from the time the plays commenced, never had to shift for his living: he had always money to lend and money to spend; and we know also, that many of his contemporaries, men with genius akin to that which produced these plays, were in continued and utter extremity, willing to barter exertion, name, and fame, for the daily dole that gets the daily dinner.

May not William Shakspeare—the cautious, calculating man, careless of fame, and intent only on money-making—have found, in some furthest garret overlooking the 'silent highway' of the Thames, some pale, wasted student, with a brow as ample and lofty as his own, who had written the Wars of the Roses, and who, with eyes of genius gleaming through despair, was about, like Chatterton, to spend his last copper coin upon some cheap and speedy means of death? What was to hinder William Shakspeare from reading, appreciating, and purchasing these dramas, and thereafter keeping his poet, as Mrs Packwood did? The mere circumstance of his assuming them as his own, may have seemed to be justified by his position as manager, and his regard to the interests of the theatre; as a play by a well-known and respected favourite would be more likely to escape hissing than one by an unknown adventurer; and the practice once commenced must go on; for we cannot suppose that Shakspeare could afford to deny the authorship of Macbeth, if he had previously consented to father Henry VI., The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and the Midsummer Night's Dream. This assumption, we are sorry to say, smooths away many of the difficulties that have hitherto baffled the critics. How could Shakspeare, say they, have been able to write at all, while obviously and laboriously employed in the active business of his profession? Where did he acquire that all-comprehensive knowledge of nature, men, and books? How could he paint with such exact fidelity the peculiar scenery pertaining exclusively to the subject in question, when he can be proved never to have left London? What time had he to tread the 'blasted heath,' or describe the aspect of Glammis Castle? How could he accomplish all this? Why, simply, and naturally, and easily—by affording his poet all the requisite leisure, and defraying the expenses of all the requisite tours. And with this view, though it cannot be proved, and is very unlikely, that Shakspeare ever was in Scotland, yet it is most likely that the author of Macbeth was; and thus the intelligence, but not the genius, of these wonderful works ceases to be supernatural. Again, not one single manuscript of Shakspeare's plays or poems has ever been discovered; and certainly the search has been as rigorous and continuous as that for the Philosopher's Stone; while even Scott, when owning to the Novels, found it necessary to say that almost all the manuscripts were holograph; nor, if we do not very much mistake, is there among all the records and traditions which have been handed to us, any statement of Shakspeare having been seen writing, or having delivered his manuscript.

Of course, the obvious answer to all this is, that such a transaction, carried on through so many years, and having reference to works which even in that age excited considerable admiration and attention, could not be concealed. We may reply to this, that Shakspeare, who apparently was liked by every one, did not conceal it from his friends, and that they supported him in this pardonable assumption—the members of the theatre for their own sakes, and his other friends for his.

Take, besides, the custom of the age, the helter-skelter way in which dramas were got up, sometimes by half-a-dozen authors at once, of whom one occasionally monopolised the fame; and the unscrupulous manner in which booksellers appropriated any popular name of the day, and affixed it to their publications; and who so popular with all playgoers of the period as the gentle, well-living Shakspeare? And his name would better suit his friends and the then public, than any mere recluse, unknown poet, until his name, like other myths, acquired sanctity by age. Indeed, we fear it is not necessary to go back to Shakspeare's time to find the practice of assumed authorship of purchased plays, without either the reasons or the excuses which apply to Shakspeare. Unfortunately, however, for those who claim Shakspeare for Shakspeare, the secret was not wholly kept. Robert Greene, a well-known contemporary, a writer of reputation, but one who led the skeldering life peculiar to most of his class, addressed, on his death-bed, in 1592, a warning to his co-mates not to trust to the puppets 'that speak from our mouths.' He then goes on in these remarkable words, which we believe every critic thinks were intended for Shakspeare: 'Yes, trust them not; for there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that, with his tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and, being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.' Again: with this view, the disputed passages—those in which critics have agreed that the genius is found wanting—the meretricious ornaments sometimes crowded in—the occasional bad taste displayed—in short, all the imperfections discernible and disputable in these mighty dramas, are reconcilable with their being the interpolations of Shakspeare himself on his poet's works.

The dedication of the Venus and the Lucrece to Lord Southampton is, we confess, somewhat against us, for we cannot but think these poems came from the pen that wrote Romeo; but, after all, Southampton was so generous a patron, that Shakspeare might be excused in assuming the authorship, in order to make the books (as his poems) a better return for the thousand pounds bestowed. But if Southampton really knew him to be the author of the dramas, how comes it that Raleigh, Spenser, and even Bacon—all with genius so thoroughly kindred to the author of Hamlet—have all ignored his acquaintance? Raleigh and Bacon seem not to have known of his existence; while Spenser, if he alludes to the works, takes care to avoid the name. In short, Heywood, Suckling, Hales, and all the others who are recorded to have spoken of Shakspeare 'with great admiration,' confine themselves to the works, and seem personally to avoid the man—always excepting 'Rare Ben Jonson;' and we confess, if Ben is to be entirely believed, Shakspeare wrote Shakspeare. But Ben, if unsupported, is somewhat disqualified from being what the Scotch would call a 'famous witness'—he was under the deepest pecuniary obligations to Shakspeare, and was through life, despite the nonsensical tradition of their quarrel, his hearty friend and boon-companion, with 'blind affection,' as he phrases it, as seen above, literally 'unto death,' and therefore bound by the strongest ties to keep his secret, if secret there were. Besides, Ben can be convicted of at least one unqualified fib on the subject. Hear how he describes Droeshout's print of Shakspeare, prefixed to the first folio edition of 1623:

This figure that thou here see'st put,
It was for gentle Shakspeare cut,
Wherein the graver had a strife