something about being sorry he had an appointment elsewhere, and made a very awkward retreat from the room, and a speedy one from the house. I could only contain myself till he was out of hearing, when, although it was very cruel, I laughed till my sides ached !—No, I never enjoyed a game at cross-purposes half so much.

On the breakfast table, next morning, I saw a letter, in my lover's well-known hand, waiting the coming down of my father. I left the parlour that I might not appear to have seen it. At breakfast I observed my father look unusually grave, and two or three times direct a scrutinizing glance to my side of the table. I was, however, entirely on my guard, and behaved with the most perfect decorum. After breakfast, I rose and took my work, and sat down quietly at the other end of the room, while my father and aunt Sophy conversed in a low voice about something which I could not distinctly hear,-but I am pretty sure, from the looks they directed towards me, that I was the principal subject. I heard aunt Sophy say repeatedly, "Poor thing!" My father once or twice said, rather peevishly,-" Nonsense! I'll not believe it;" and once, I think, I heard him use the word "villain." I understood all this better than I chose to let them know; and to give them more freedom, I sat down to the pianoforte, and played some of the most noisy pieces I could think of. At dinner, and all the evening, my father and aunt were more than usually kind and attentive to me. Thinks I to myself, "I see the reason of all this, but I will die before I betray myself." For a day or two I thought the matter would surely be explained: first, I thought my lover would call, then I thought he would write. -"Surely," thought I," he will not give me up without another trial." But a whole week has elapsed, and I have neither seen nor heard from him,-and my brother told me yesterday, that he had gone for a few days to the country. I then began to think that I had carried the matter too far; and though he cannot fail in time to discover his

mistake, and see that "I am not mad," I cannot bear that he should think so even for another week. I therefore have deemed it the best way, dear Mr Journalist, to address this letter to you, and to beg you will assure my swain, that, notwithstanding all that has passed, I am as perfectly in my senses as he is; and although I cannot offer him my heart, the bump of adhesiveness on the back of my head will do every bit as well; and as it is very large, it will, when I give him my hand, attach me to him for life. I remain, dear Mr Journalist, your very obedient humble servant, CORDELIA HEARTLESS.

ARTICLE XI.

APPLICATION OF PHRENOLOGY TO CRITICISM.

It is one of the marks of true science, by which it may without difficulty be distinguished from what is false, that the instant it is discovered, by whatever means the discovery is made, it becomes available for purposes of utility. None of the metaphysical systems regarding the mind has ever been converted to any useful purpose; nor are they capable of being so converted: for though they have been, by the great but misapplied ingenuity of their authors, devised with the express intent of explaining some of the phenomena of mind, they all of them leave untouched a greater number of phenomena than they attempt to explain; and of many of the most ordinary and striking facts they do not pretend to give any explanation. The investigations of phrenology, as is well known, were not begun with any view of forming a system, and were merely the result of following out a train of observations (to which the first discoverer was led more by accident than design), with regard to the functions and uses of different parts of the brain. But no sooner had these investigations been carried to a certain length, and the conclusions

to which these led, been placed in their due order, than a system unfolded spontaneously, more perfect by far than any which human ingenuity could devise, and more perfect, merely for this reason, because it proceeded from an observation of nature, and was not the product of human ingenuity. No sooner was this system evolved, than it was found to be capable of being applied to, and of explaining with ease, those differences in the characters and talents of men which had baffled the ingenuity of the most acute metaphysicians. They who have studied the subject, and who have consequently accustomed themselves to think phrenologically, are able, in all cases of real character, even the most anomalous, to discern the combination of powers and feelings (according to the phrenological system), which produce the manifestations perceived; and whenever a character is well or naturally described, either in real or fictitious writing, have no difficulty in applying to the delineation the same mode of analysis. We, who have experienced this in numberless instances, feel, in the occurrence of every new case, a confident expectation that it is capable of being explained satisfactorily on phrenological principles, and we are never disappointed. We can assure our readers, that, if they will only be persuaded to try the efficacy of this system as a medium of thought, they will find it to furnish a key to human character, and to afford an insight into human nature, of which, antecedently to actual experience, they could not have formed the remotest conception.

It is our intention occasionally to give examples of this mode of applying the science, by analyzing a few of the characters which occur in the writings of some of our best dramatists and novelists; and we trust we shall be able to shew, that those writers who, in their delineation of character, have shewn the deepest and most accurate knowledge of human nature, are throughout the most strictly phrenological; that characters drawn with a due attention to nature, may, with ease, and in every case, admit of being translated as it were into phrenological language; and that the writers alluded to

have in fact accurately described the manifestations of those faculties which have been more distinctly revealed to us by phrenology, only without giving them the phrenological names. We trust that we shall not have proceeded far in this sort of analysis without proving, to the satisfaction of our unprejudiced readers, that phrenology is no other than a systematic view of human nature, and that whatever is natural is just to the same extent and in the same degree phrenological.

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In our present Number, we mean to give an example of the manner in which this science may thus be made subservient to criticism, and in doing so we meditate "no middle flight." We mean not to expend our time, in the first instance, by flying at inferior game; we shall not hesitate at once to grapple with the very highest, and shall choose our first example from Shakspeare himself. We do this for two reasons; first, Because the characters of that incomparable master are invariably drawn with such a force and breadth, that it is impossible to mistake the lines by which they are pourtrayed; and, secondly, Because it is admitted, on all hands, that he possessed a knowledge of human nature the most profound and accurate of any man who ever wrote, insomuch that it has been often observed, that studying Shakspeare is studying nature.

THE CHARACTER OF MACBETH.

THIS character has been alleged by some critics to be out of nature. They have thought, that no man, who possessed in any degree the good, nay, the great qualities with which he is described at the beginning of the play, or who was capable of the noble actions there attributed to him, could have suddenly become so wicked as to murder his kinsman and his king, when under the protection of his roof, without provocation, and without any other motive than that of inordinate ambition. Others have with more reason vindicated Shak

speare from any departure from nature in this particular, observing, that nothing is more inconsistent than the human character, and that many times men, who are far from being destitute of good qualities, and who are even capable of performing great and noble actions, may be drawn on by strong temptation to commit the most atrocious crimes, of which antecedently they would have conceived themselves altogether incapable. When the Prophet declared to Hazael, yet uninfluenced by the desire of a crown, the various atrocities he should commit to obtain one, he exclaimed with horror," Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great "thing?"—and yet Hazael did as had been foretold. Though aware, however, of these inconsistencies in the characters of mankind, previously to the discovery of that system of the human mind which has been revealed to us by phrenology, we were not before this able to trace the sources from whence these inconsistencies arose; nor were we able to see to what lengths they might be carried, nor whether all men were equally liable to such aberrations from the known path of right and duty. We have thought it might be interesting to examine the character, of Macbeth, as pourtrayed by our great dramatic poet, by the principles of our new science, and we think we shall be able to shew that it is strictly conformable not only to nature, but also to phrenology.

In the third scene of the first act, after the prophetic addresses of the witches (which in one event had been almost in the instant verified), the bare thought of the murder, just suggested to him, throws him into a state of the greatest mental agitation. His ambition and his conscientious feelings are immediately placed in violent opposition:—

Two truths are told,

As happy prologues to the swelling act

Of the imperial theme. I thank you, gentlemen.—
This supernatural soliciting

The combination of the lower propensities with the higher sentiments, in different degrees of relative strength, in the same individual, accounts for an immense number of actions apparently anomalous.