words, things, and figures. Not only did he call up objects at will, but he revived them in the mind, in the same situations, and with the lights and colours in which they had appeared to him at particular moments. He collected not only the gist of the thoughts in the book wherefrom they were taken, but even the disposition of his soul at the time. Thus, by an unheard-of faculty and privilege, he could retrace the progress and the whole course of his imagination from the most anciently sketched idea, down to its last development. His brain, habituated from earliest youth to the complicated mechanism of human forces, drew from its rich structure a crowd of admirable images, full of reality and freshness, with which it was continually nurtured. He could throw a veil over his eyes, and find himself in a camera obscura, where all the features of a scene were reproduced in a form more pure and perfect than they had been originally presented to his external

senses."

We are glad of this biography, as it will tend to turn attention to the noblest of our later poets; creating a higher ideal than the practical tendency of the time engenders; and opening a store-house of suggestions, thoughts, and utterances, whence may be wrought a new array of intellectual arms, to be turned against the conventionalities, untruths, and outrageous wrongs with which modern society is oppressed.

THE SHAKSPEARE SOCIETY'S PAPERS. Vol. 3. London: The Shakspeare Society.

THIS third volume that the Society has printed of Miscellaneous papers is, we think, the most entertaining; and the publication of such a miscellany will prove more attractive to many of the readers of Shakspeare and admirers of the old drama than the more elaborate reprints issued by the Society. In this volume there are twenty-three different articles, all of them illustrating either old habits, customs, or poetry. Some of them are valuable as confirming, by documents, the old usages customary to the theatre, and which have hitherto escaped the vigilance of our most industrious antiquaries. The most important of these is a patent, issued by the Crown, giving very extraordinary, and, indeed, unconstitutional powers, to Tylney, the Master of the Revels, to enlist, as it were, any persons, singers, or others, that he might think advantageous for the performance of theatrical exhibitions before the Court. There is also given, by the same contributor, “The original patent for the nursery of actors and actresses in Charles the Second's time." Several of the papers illustrate passages in Shakspeare and the other old plays of the period,—and other events in the little known lives of our old poets. The most interesting of these is a paper by Mr. Cunningham, bringing to light several events in the life of Nash, the prose satirist and poet. Nor is it without critical articles, amongst which we may particularise Miss Zornlin's papers on Jack Cade, and a still more interesting one on Hamlet's conduct to Ophelia.

The reprint of "Salmacis and Hermaphroditus," attributed as the writer of the paper thinks—falsely to Francis Beaumont, is a valuable contribution. It is a beautiful poem, and it was desirable that it should be accessible to the reader in a correct and readable form. This poem alone would render the volume valuable.

The most interesting of the prose articles is by Mr. Payne Collier, "On the earliest Quarto editions of the Plays of Shakspeare.' "" He very justly says that a great many inferences are to be drawn from the observation of the original editions, and more especially as regards their title-pages. In the present paper he has reprinted, in their original state, as regards the size and disposition of the type, the old quarto title pages; and has remarked on each in a very ingenious manner, with no over-nice speculation, but with a shrewdness that always keeps within the bounds of fair and plain deduction. Several curious circumstances are thus weighed up: First and foremost, the strange but incontrovertible fact, that only seventeen out of thirty-six of his plays were ever seen in print by this most wonderful writerhe leaving nineteen to the hazardous casualties of manuscript. What can be thought, after this, of the numerous gentlemen who now rush into print without a chance of being performed, or a chance of ever deserving to be so. Amongst other remarkable circumstances connected with the publication of his plays in his lifetime, are the haphazard selection that is made, and the strange periods they were published in. It seems to us so curious, that we give the following summary:

In the year 1597, the earliest date yet discovered, Shakspeare being then thirty-three years old, were published three, viz.: Romeo and Juliet; Richard the Second; Richard the Third.

In 1598, two, viz.: Henry the Fourth, Part I.; Love's Labour Lost.

In 1600, six, viz.: Much Ado about Nothing; Midsummer Night's Dream; Merchant of Venice; Henry the Fourth, Part II.; Henry the Fifth; Titus Andronicus.

In 1602, The Merry Wives of Windsor.

In 1603, Hamlet.

In 1608, King Lear.

In 1609, Troilus and Cressida; Pericles.

Why these should have been published, some from good and some from most wretched copies-why there should be six in one year, and five years without any, cannot now be ascertained. For although the folio editors say that they were all unauthorised, we yet find that several of the quarto plays have a larger quantity of matter and better readings than the folio. It is also a curious fact, that whilst several plays were printed falsely, with Shakspeare's name ostentatiously set forth, that in the quarto Romeo and Juliet in the three editions no name appears. There is very little more faith, however, to be placed in these title-pages, than in the play-bills of our minor theatres and saloons, where all the

incidents of the drama are enlarged upon in exaggerated terms. As for instance

THE TRAGEDY OF

KING RICHARD THE THIRD.

Containing

His treacherous plots against his brother Clarence: the pittiefull murther of his innocent nephewes: his tyrannicall vsurpation: with the whole course of his detested life: and most deserued death.

As it hath beene lately acted by the Right Honnorable the Lord Chamberlaine his seruants.

AT LONDON:

Printed by Valentine Sims, for Andrew Wise, dwelling in Paules Church-Yard, at the Signe of the Angell.

1597.

We must however refer the reader to the article itself, as suggestive of much curious reflection and speculation; and to the whole volume as one calculated to greatly interest all lovers of our old poets and dramatists.

MIND AND MATTER, ILLUSTRATED BY CONSIDERATIONS ON HEREDITARY INSANITY, AND The Influence oF TEMPERAMENT IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PASSIONS. By J. G. Millingen, M.D., &c. 8vo. H. Hurst. THE success and extensive popularity of the author's "Curiosities of Medical Experience" has, he says, induced him to publish the present work. And he tells us that he is desirous to add to what he "considers the most precious of all sciences, the knowledge of mankind." It cannot be denied that Dr. Millingen has had many opportunities of studying men's dispositions and idiosyncracies in a very extensive school. Educated in Paris during the French Revolution, accompanying the Peninsular Army in the whole of its career, and subsequently having submitted to his examination the inmates of an extensive receptacle for the decidedly insane, added to the opportunities of a large general practice, he must have had ample opportunities for observing at least the aberrations and eccentricities of human nature. And after having been much entertained by the perusal of the present work, we cannot but think that his talents partake much more of the perceptive than the reflective species. He has a very pleasant style, knows how to illustrate his speculations with quotations from the poets, and is well acquainted with the various hypotheses that the natural philosophers have promulgated, from Aristotle's time to our own. Still we do not think that the present work will entitle him to rank amongst the Blumenbachs and Laurences of our day; nor can his book be looked

upon as more than the work of an observant man of the world and a graceful scholar.

As an instance of the comparative shallowness of his science, it may be noticed, that he revives the theory of temperaments, and looks upon organisation as the great influence of character. There can be no doubt that it has great effect on the individual, but whether the old definitions of temperaments, such as the nervous, the sanguine, the bilious, et cetera, are at all to be relied on, is doubtful: although the author is to some extent supported by the opinion of Dr. Prichard and many continental physiologists. The interest of the work, as we have said, rests more in its illustrations than its theories: and in the essays treating of the various passions will be found some very clear definitions and curious anecdotes. The following is from that on Fear:

"Sudden terror has brought on various diseases,-insanity, catalepsy, apoplexy, even hydrophobia. The hair has turned grey, and white, in the space of an incredibly short time. The following curious case of this nature has been recorded: The peasants of Sardinia are in the constant habit of hunting eagles and vultures, both for profit, and as an amusement. In the year 1839, three young men (brethren) living near San Giovanni de Domas Novas, having espied an eagle's nest in the bottom of a steep precipice,' they drew lots to decide which of them should descend to take it away. The danger did not arise so much from the depth of the precipice-upwards of a hundred feet-but the apprehension of the numerous birds of prey that inhabited the cavern. However, the lot fell on one of the brothers, a young man of about two-and-twenty, of athletic form, and of a dauntless spirit. He belted a knotted rope round his waist, by which his brothers could lower or raise him at will; and, armed with a sharpened infantry sabre, he boldly descended the rock, and reached the nest in safety. It contained four eaglets of that peculiar bright plumage called the light Isabella. difficulty now arose in bearing away the nest. He gave a signal to his brethren, and they began to haul him up, when he was fiercely attacked by two powerful eagles, the parents of the young birds he had captured. The onset was most furious, they darkened the cavern by the flapping of their broad wings, and it was not without much difficulty that he kept them off with his sword; when, on a sudden, the rope that suspended him swung round, and on looking up he perceived that he had partly severed it with his sabre. At this fearful sight he was struck with such a sudden terror, that he was unable to urge his companions to hasten to his delivery, although he still kept his fierce antagonists at bay. His brothers continuing to haul him up, while their friendly voices endeavoured to encourage him, he soon reached the summit of the rock; but although he continued to grasp the eagle's nest, he was speechless, and his hair, which had before been of a jet black colour, was now as white as snow.

The

"Certain temperaments are more susceptible of fear than others. The bold sanguineous, the ambitious bilious, are not so subject to its influence, as the atrabilious and nervous; and the state of the digestive faculties operates materially in rendering us more or less liable to experience its power. Napoleon was wont to observe, that he had his courageous days. Cæsar made the same admission; and although his courage could not be

doubted, he rarely ascended his chariot without hesitation, fearing that he might be overturned by an imprudent conductor. Every man who has been in the field of battle, will confess, that when he was not in a good state of health, or fatigued by any excesses or fagging duties, his state of mind varied; and the soldier who will calmly see his comrades falling, and hear the shot and shell whistling and moaning around him, without any mental disturbance, will, on other occasions, mechanically duck his head at the whizzing of a musket-ball. History recounts many instances of a panic seizing a whole army: and this was fully illustrated in the 'sauve qui peut’ of Waterloo.

"The confusion in that flight must have been beyond conception; for in collecting the wounded French on the following morning, I found men of numerous regiments and various arms lying near each other, and who must have belonged to different divisions and brigades, all amalgamated in the rout."

Of that contagious power which effects so many important changes in human society, he has the following remarks :—

menon.

"The sympathetic power of fascination is another unaccountable phenoReid attributes to the nervous system an atmosphere of sensibility. Ernest Plater maintained that our soul could diffuse itself in mutual transmissions. On this most curious and important subject I have expressed myself as follows in a former publication :

"What is then this invisible vital fluid, this electric principle, that the touch, the breath, the warmth, the very aroma of those we are fond of, communicate, when, trembling, fluttering, breathless, we approach them? that enables us, even when surrounded with darkness, to recognise, by the feel, the hand of her we love? Nay, whence arises the feeling of respect and veneration that we experience in the presence of the great and preeminently good? It may be said, this is the result of our education; we have been taught to consider these individuals as belonging to a superior race of mortals. To a certain extent this may be true; yet there does exist an impressive contagion when we are brought into the presence, or placed under the guidance, of such truly privileged persons. Their courage, their eloquence, their energies, their very fanaticism, thrill every fibre, like the vibrations of the chords under the skilful harpist's hand. Actuated by this mystic influence, the coward has boldly rushed into the battle, the timid dared unusual peril, and the humane been driven to deeds of blood. Fanatic contagion has produced both martyrs and heroes. Example stimulates and emulates, despite our reasoning faculties. Imitation is the principle of action, the nursery of good and of great deeds; we either feel degraded by the ascendancy of others, when we fancy, however vainly, that we may attain their level-or devote ourselves to their cause and their service, when we tacitly recognise their mastery. Fortunately for our frail race, sympathies are liable to be worn out by their own exhausting power. Attrition polishes, but indurates at the same time; thus does social intercourse harden our gentle predispositions. Experience is to man, what rust is to iron; it corrodes, but at the same time protects the metal to a certain degree from the magnet's mighty power." "