the

honor of speaking his own sentiments, and of being the organ of his complaints against an unjust world. He is represented as loving

'to lay along

Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along the wood,'

in such mood as we may easily imagine he himself loved to lie, when forming into being his own deep-toned inspirings. The more fitly to bring him into sympathy with himself, he removes him from the din of courts, and places him in the forest of Arden. There he allows him all freedom of thought and observation, and, in 'motley wear,' to pour out those serio-comic sayings, which are the sincerest sayings a man ever utters for his solemn and set words are the offspring of place and circumstance; his lighter sallies the mere ebullition of a fleeting feeling; while, always longing to be himself, when he does indulge in such an imprudence, he thinks to shield his hearty frankness by a jocose manner and a high-key'd laugh. Shakspeare's love for fools,' the deep philosophy of his fools,' is explained by Jaques, when he says,

'Give me leave

To speak my mind, and I will through and through
Cleanse the foul body of the infected world,

If they will patiently receive my medicine;'

for in the fool' he could consistently give vent to those bitter taunts and those private opinions that his regard for his art forbade him to put into the lips of any pretendedly rational person those very

prudent people, who are known at this day, who, before they speak, must see how and when their words will fall, whom offend, how affect party, how touch interest. The world Shakspeare painted was our world. Mankind are ever the same. Persons of place and consequence could no more say what they thought then, than they can now. We do not sympathize with their restraints, and wonder they are not more bold with their opportunities — are half vexed with them for their prudence; but the master genius was true to nature, and only gives us his true opinions, his real feelings, by the mouth of fools.'

If it would not be considered irreverent, we would say, that this notion furnishes some illustration of the apostle's meaning, where he says: If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise,' i. e., let him become disregardful of the usual motives that cramp other men, that his sense may have full play. And again; 'God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.' Now we contend that Shakspeare and the apostle had one and the same idea upon this subject. Indeed it would not be difficult to show that Shakspeare was a diligent student of the Bible, and, in the then scarcity of books, did not neglect so rich a fund of thought and expression as the sacred pages.

It may be said that the plays are full of satire upon the abuses of the world, and that the author does every where speak openly and boldly. It is not so; it would not be natural to be so. Shakspeare's plays are not satires, but bona fide pictures of events and scenes. Herein consist their beauty and popularity. When the disappointed

man rails, we set it to the account of his disappointment; when innocence complains, we pity the singularity of her case; when the misanthrope scorns, we regret his bile, and think our author very consistent; but the world, the world escapes. Far otherwise is it with the disinterested remark of the fool,' who is privileged to speak, and paid for speaking; whose own comfort is augmented by his severity upon others, and who, like a razor, is valued only as he is sharp.

The banishment of the Duke brings Jaques into his native element. His melancholy is a passion, for no man is happier. He is a thinker. He revels about the woods,

'Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing;'

weeps with the 'poor deer,' scolds about the Duke for his encroachments upon natural liberty, and is as wild in all his actions, and as wise in all he says, as any fool' could be.

·

To select Shakspeare's favorite, where all are so favored, is almost presumption; but we cannot help this conclusion. The most showy characters are not always the greatest favorites with their authors. The most popular productions by no means bear a corresponding interest in their minds, over other, lesser famed, works of the poet and the painter. A little poem, perhaps unnoticed by the great world, shall register the cherished thoughts and private feelings of the one; a small picture, that the casual observer deems insignificant, shall be a view of the spot where the other first loved — of the cot where he was born' - by chance, it may be a green mound, with a stone at its head, and trees, and a simple enclosure; there he has spent his whole art, and it is to him more than all the gorgeous drapery and speaking features of his lauded efforts. What the world. the most admires, the individual rarely loves, and takes home to his soul, to foster with his secret sympathies, and deify by his private devotions. The mother loves most fondly her deformed child, not because it is deformed or maimed, but not having the world's admiration, shut out from common paths by its hapless lot, it grows faster in those inner qualities, those higher sympathies that bind the souls of men. The child thus situated has associations, and is happy in interchanges of thoughts and affections with its mother, which the 'fair in form' do not know.

From our view of Jaques, we attach great importance to all he says; and if for no other reason, we should do so from his having committed to him the uttering of that little book, multum in parvo, of which we will now quote the introduction :

'All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.'

In the conclusion, of our introduction, we would say, that we mean to read this book with curious and attentive eyes; for in its leaf seems to be written the history of man.

THUS begins and closes the first chapter of man's history. Why say more, in a book which was to be immortal in its conciseness? Every mother and father can fill up the outline. It is enough for our author to say, that infancy is a season of helplessness and sickness, of danger and of pain. To get foothold in the world is hard; to maintain it is labor; and when time has cemented our feet to the rocky soil, to tear asunder the habit of living, is harder still. The infant dies, as it first lived, by a single gasp. The playful boy asks for his hoop and ball, and weeps, as he languishes on his last couch, when he hears the merry shout of his play-fellows beneath his window. He asks to see the sunshine, and longs for the green pastures and the running streams. At some still hour of morning, when the day has settled into soberness, he asks his mother to raise him upon his pillow, that he may lean his head upon her bosom; and so he dies. But there is no illusion, when the man enters the dark valley of the shadow of death. All is real solemnity — an awe that forbids open and violent resistance; but his arms are fastened like a vice around his wife and his children, or his eyes are rivetted upon a lofty goal he had almost reached. But a giant hand unlocks his embrace, and an iron film covers his eyes, and silently and shudderingly he passes.

At its first breath, the infant utters a cry, by which the mother knows she has given birth to a living child. How true a token that it is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward! Wise Providence, who hast for thy own best purpose appointed sorrow to man while on earth, how kind and beneficent art thou, in beginning this immortal training at the first! The little muling' thing! A puke is thy first dose, or was; physic may have improved. This is not all. Thou art submitted to no gentle rubbing, no questionable bath. Taken from the tender cradle of a mother's care, who has moved in all her ways mindful of her precious burden, and who has already learned to love thee by the pain thou causedst, as she will hereafter delight in thy tiny scratches, and no careful handlings of her cap and lace, thou art each morn immersed in water from the pump. This will teach thee to bear the cold glances of thy friends, when fortune frowns and they shall look askance at thee; and thou must learn to look calm amid estrangement; to be passive under wrong; to be forgiving of injury. All early suffering is for thy good. The fires of affliction purify; the chills of adversity strengthen.

Escaping from this rough introduction to our world, happy art thou if permitted to cuddle to thy mother's breast. Perchance no such blissful lot awaits thee. Thy mother, darling, may be one whom, with all a mother's tenderness ready to glow and flourish around her heart, cruel fashion and her kindest friends have persuaded, that to nurse thee, to let thee slake thy longing lips at the true fountain, is a sin against the ton. Oh miserable state! Thy tender limbs clad in garments the curious work of six long months, with cap

made elegantly rough with dot and eyelet-hole, like a huge nutmeggrater, thou art condemned to some old nurse, whose eager eyes, meanwhile she dandles, rocks, and trots, shall be engaged to look for some strange mark of leg of bacon, strawberry or peach, or read thy fortune in her grounds of tea. And worse than this, must ever and anon feed her huge nostrils with a pound of snuff, to help her incantations damned and dire. Who can depict the horror that must swell thy breast, when that lean, spectacled face fills the virgin retina of thine eye! If there be a standard of beauty, we pity thee.

But oh! most blessed by comparison, though cabined, cribbed, confined,' if thy mother be an honest craftsman's wife, who cannot spare to buy thee foreign milk! Then shalt thou repose thy cheek upon a couch made soft by love and 'sleepless tenderness;' then shalt thou bite to please thyself, and ease thy sprouting gums, while she, 'fond creature,' shall be happy even in her pain. And happy still art thou, if born in some low, humble thatch, where decent poverty joined with pious trust shall make a little heaven for thy new eyes, with flowers and clambering vines, and all the thousand ingenious contrivances which taste prompts, and nature supplies materials for executing, where there is love, and virtue, and humility. Then too shall the arms of a father, made strong by toil, lift thee as if thou wert a feather, till thy tiny arms shall flap, and thy new-found voice shall crow, with joy at such a parentage.

But where can we find tears enough to weep thy lonely fate, if brought a sinless child of sin' into this world, with none to own thy coming? Some cold evening in December, perhaps a wealthy merchant, warm from his coal fire, shall stumble over thee, encased in a band-box, in which thou hast been for hours upon his door-stone. Think not thy stay will be long in his abode. Thou wilt be handled tenderly, and women there may weep for a few moments; and they will look if thou bearest any mark of lover or acquaintance. But, curiosity satisfied, and the longing of some maiden aunt repressed, to adopt thee as a gift of heaven to her unappropriated existence, thou shalt be trundled to the Foundling Hospital. There babies are no novelty-turned off like a morning baking of biscuits. We hope in mercy thou wilt die; not for thy body's sake, but for thy soul's. Not all the pleasing incidents of 'Japhet' in his 'Search' may chance to thee; but thou mayest bear all his pain, and more; and if heaven have given thee a sensitive mind, thou wilt live with a heavy sense of wrong rankling in thy bosom, and seek crime, and recklessly steep thy name in guilt, to wound thy cruel father's heart.

Dear infancy! whether born in palaces or hovels; whether thy birth be welcomed by the sound of bells, or namelessly thou art laid upon the stranger's door-stone; thou art doomed to have untold wishes, unexpressed desires, pains thou canst never tell, and to shed tears, of course.

Here is the greatest reason for sympathy with the infant's 'age.' Often no ingenuity can interpret its moan. An opiate may lull it, but it will wake to moan again. How many die in agony! What writhings of the limbs! A pin is now sticking deep in its tender flesh! It has no tongue to tell its intense suffering.

Its pains end not with the nurse's arms.' What thumps and tum

bles, what bumps and bruises, does it get in learning to walk? How bitterer than the drunkard's agony its thirst, when first denied the breast! It counts it all to cruelty and neglect. No sooner does it make an effort to talk, than it suffers perpetual disappointment in being misconceived, and in having its most earnest expressions slighted.

But though humanity is thus fulfilling its destiny from its earliest breath, still infancy has its mission to the world. It has been called most beautifully the Perpetual Messiah. The morality of childhood begins in the 'nurse's arms.' Infancy binds us to home. The mother hurries from the theatre, the ball, sick of heartless mirth, to find real pleasure by her infant's side. Side-walks are less crowded in prolific years. The merchant pauses amid desperate speculations and the hazard of his fortune, for his little ones at home; the drunkard pushes aside the bowl; the gambler leaves his dice; and thoughtless youth, become a mother or a father, grows circumspect and grave. We do not talk much of this influence; perhaps are not fully aware of its extent; but it operates silently upon us all. Even the dying gladiator, butchered to make a Roman holiday,' heeded not 'the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.'

'His eyes

Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He reck'd not of the life he lost, nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play.'

And this is our reading of the first chapter of our history.
Taunton, Mass.

J. N. B.

Ur in the morning, 'as soon as the lark,'
Late in the evening, when falleth the dark,
Afar on the upland, or under the tree,
Come the sweet voices of children to me.
I am an old man, and my hair is gray,

But I sit in the sunshine to watch you at play,
And a kindlier current doth run through each vein,
And I bless you, bright creatures! again and again.
1 rejoice in your sports, in the warm summer weather,
While, hand locked in hand, ye are striving together;
But I see what ye see not; the sorrow and strife
Of the years that will come in the contest of life.

For I am an old man, and age looketh on
To the time that will be, from the time that is gone;
But you, blessed creatures! you think not of sorrow,
Your joy is to-day, and ye have no to-morrow!
Ay, sport ye, and wrestle-be glad as the sun,
And lie down to rest when your pastime is done;

For your dreams are of sunshine, of blossom, and dew,
And the God of the Blessed' doth watch over you,
While the angels of heaven are missioned to keep
Unbroken the calm of your innocent sleep;

And an old man's blessing doth o'er you dwell,
The whole day long and so fare ye well!

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