"The exertion, on the part of Great Britain, to accomplish all this, would be small: the climate opposes some obstacles; the population of Africa none. The smallest gun-brig in our navy would lay the natives dwelling on both banks of the Niger, from Bammakoo to its mouth, from Bornou to Benin, prostrate before us with obedience and respect. Coming as their friend, overthrowing superstition and whatever is evil; rearing up, encouraging, and protecting what is just; we should teach the natives in these extensive regions to assume their rank among the sons of men. To accomplish this we have, by means of the Niger, a safe and an easy road. Let no other nation pre-occupy it."

We now take leave of Mr. M'Queen, thanking him for his suggestions. We have omitted many ingenious observations of our author, not wishing to detain the reader on a subject already exhausted, African discoveries; a subject which has become of late unpopular, from the repeated disasters of our various enterprising travellers. The philanthropist, however, and every individual interested in the improvement and civilization of the millions of Pagans of this interesting continent, now sunk into the lowest depth of ignorance and idolatry, cannot fail to be interested in the perusal of Mr. M'Queen's pages.

"Je m'imagine que le plaisir est grand de sevoir imprimer."

SHAKSPEARE'S BERTRAM.

"I cannot reconcile my heart to Bertram; a man noble without generosity, and young without truth; who inarries Helen as a coward, and leaves her as a profligate; when she is dead by his unkindness, sneaks home to a second marriage, is accused by a woman whom he has wronged, defends himself by falsehood, and is dismissed to happiness."-DR. JOHNSON.

THIS is a hard sentence, Doctor, we wish you had never written it. There it stands, in all the modern editions, at the beginning of the play, damping our pleasant anticipations by a solemn assurance that the principal dish at the feast is unwholesome. Just as the reader is hastening among the dramatis persona, the great moralist pulls him back, and bawls in his ear,-"Beware of a bad character!" He spreads a wet blanket over the poet's work, and, like Lady Macbeth, forbids "Heaven to peep through it." Few are at the trouble to raise it, and those few may be tempted to throw it in the face of him who put it there. We, however, have no love for human retribution; nor would it be, in this case, just. Happily there are many proofs of unaffected kindliness and compassion in Johnson's heart, though his doctrine often sounds harsh and unforgiving; and had he been better acquainted with Bertram, we think he would not have "made night hideous," by aggravating those faults, for whose pardon Shakspeare had so eloquently pleaded, into crimes which admit of no allowance. The truth is, his edition of Shakspeare was undertaken as a job, and executed with as much speed as his bookseller enjoined. He wrote a preface in his best style, and seemed to think that was nearly enough. His notes, in many instances, are careless, and even strangely blind; and his observations, though sometimes pithy and admirable, betray errors which an attentive perusal of the text must have obviated. As for the inferior plays, and "All's well that ends well" has always been considered one of them, he willingly shewed neglect where the world would scarcely have thanked him for care and study.

If we cannot "reconcile our hearts" to Bertram, the play is altogether intolerable. If at any time his conduct is such as to provoke our contempt, or if we did not perceive, among his errors, the germs of a good and honourable mind, the interest of the story would be at an end. The hopes and fears of the other characters, their efforts to reclaim him, and the happiness of Helen, would be all despair the instant he became unworthy of our sympathy.

Shakspeare appears to have adopted this tale, and conceived the character of its hero, for the purpose of portraying those moral evils, frequently interwoven with the privileges of nobility,-prejudice, arrogance, and wilfulness; and to point out how they may be corrected in the discipline of the world. Let it be borne in mind, that a nobleman in the days of Queen Elizabeth differed widely from one of our present House of Lords; and, in this instance, the scene being laid in France, we may suppose him invested with the rights of a feudal lord to their fullest extent. Bertram is, by nature, generous and affectionate. His vices are factitious as the heraldic records of his ancestry, and, like his inheritance, belong to him by legitimate descent. His father, we suspect, was not a jot better in his youth. Among his many virtues

VOL. IV. NO. XVIII.

21

there is one mentioned, which lets us a little into his patrician character, and it comes most appropriately from the mouth of majesty,—

"Who were below him,

He used as creatures of another place;

And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
Making them proud of his humility."

Praise from a king sounds bravely within the walls of a palace, but loses elsewhere. It is not enough that we should be told the old count was excellent as a soldier and a courtier, in order to make us esteem him. We understand his value better when his widow prays that her son "may succeed his father in manners as in shape," and willingly join in her love of his memory; for the word of such a lady is worth a thousand kings,-and, in all probability, it was her strength of mind, aided by his own experience, that made him a man to be lamented. The young Count comes before us possessed of a good heart, and of no mean capacity, but with a haughtiness of rank, which threatens to dull the edge of the kinder passions, and to cloud the intellect. This is the inevitable consequence of an illustrious education. The glare of his birthright has dazzled his young faculties. Perhaps the first words he could distinguish were from an important nurse, giving elaborate directions about his lordship's pap. As soon as he could walk, a crowd of submissive vassals doffed their caps, and hailed his first appearance on his legs. His spelling-book had the arms of the family emblazoned on the cover. He had been accustomed to hear himself called the great, the mighty son of Roussillon, ever since he was a helpless child. A succession of complacent tutors would by no means destroy the illusion; and it is from their hands that Shakspeare receives him, while yet in his minority.

It is too much to say that Bertram "marries Helen as a coward." He is ward to the king, who commands the marriage,

"Which both thy duty owes, and our power claims ;”

and he backs his authority with threats of—

"Both my revenge and hate,

Loosing upon thee in the name of justice,

Without all terms of pity. Speak, thine answer!"

His majesty is a moody old gentleman, but not the less fearful on that account. The most bigoted bachelor would prefer a wife to irretrievable ruin. If ever there was little shame in yielding to compulsion, here is a case in point. Helvetius indeed tells us that "he who fears nothing will do nothing contrary to his inclination; it is in quality of cowards that troops are brave." But this is a refinement upon a word beyond its general acceptation. It suits the mouth of a metaphysician, but a man of the world would hardly understand it, and a great moralist has nothing to do with it. We rather admire the boldness of young Bertram's sneering and ironical speech, wherein he consents to "take her hand," which could not be uttered without some hazard, while the brow of royalty was scowling on him. Nor does he "leave her as a profligate.' A profligate would have taken her to his arms before he abandoned her; but he flies from her with indignation, immediately after the marriage-ceremony. As we profess to entertain a brotherly

affection for Helen, we are bound to inquire if there is any apology for such ungallant behaviour on the part of the bridegroom; and in this our duty we must, as is usual, previously insist on the fault being all on his side. Well, even in this one-eyed view of the question, we are inclined to acquit him on the score of mere accident,—the coronet having slipped over his forehead, and blinded his eyes to Helen's perfections. He knew not she was "a maid too virtuous for the contempt of empire;" and it was utterly out of his comprehension "that twenty such rude boys (as himself) might tend upon, and call her hourly, mistress." All his knowledge was comprised in her being "a poor physician's daughter, who had her breeding at his father's charge;" and his farewell to her at the castle shews he regarded her somewhat in the light of a menial, when he concludes his speech with, "Be_comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her." To regard the poor girl with so little consideration is certainly very wrong; but at the same time it is very lordly, and Bertram is a lord. Besides, is the compulsion nothing? Suppose, reader, (if thou art a parlourgentleman) that an act of Parliament were to pass, enforcing thee to take Dolly from the kitchen as thy wife. Truly, whatever deserving qualities Dolly might possess, or however good her education might be, we fear thou wouldest not perceive them, partly owing to her inferior station, and partly to thine own indignation at so tyrannical a law.

The Count likewise had a bad adviser constantly at his elbow, one Monsieur Parolles. Nor does the fostering of so adroit a parasite cast any reproach on the understanding of an inexperienced youth. Parolles is not a bully, like captain Bobadil, or ancient Pistol, whose swaggering could only deceive a Master Matthew or a Dame Quickly. He talks like a soldier of "very valiant approof," and wears not his sword clumsily, but with a grace. Such a counterfeit may pass for one of the current coin of Mars. He goes through the ordeal of the French Court without suspicion, save from one man. "He was first smoked by the old Lord Lafeu;" and he, with all his cunning, did not immediately discover him to be "a snipt taffata fellow," whose "soul was in his clothes." When this play was last acted, Liston was Parolles. Liston! what an egregious blunder! Why, the part is cold and pompous. Parolles is neither a droll nor a fop. We look upon him as a gentleman of most serious deportment. It is not for the love of distinction that he assumes the character of a man of courage, but for the sake of a livelihood; and therefore there is no touch of vanity in his composition. He acts his part well, as a labourer works well when he knows he shall be well paid. It is remarkable that Helen is the only one at the Castle who saw through his disguise. She says

"And yet I know him a notorious liar,

Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;
Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him, &c."

This delineation does credit to Helen's discernment, and may be brought forward as an evidence of the truth of the Vicar of Wakefield's observation, that "the two sexes seem placed as spies on each other, and are furnished with different abilities, adapted for mutual inspection." An overweening pride of birth is Bertram's great foible. To cure him of this, Shakspeare sends him to the wars, that he may earn a fame

for himself, and thus exchange a shadow for a reality. There" the great dignity that his valour acquired for him" places him on an equality with any one of his ancestors, and he is no longer beholden to them alone for the world's observance. Thus, in his own person, he discovers there is something better than mere hereditary honour; and his heart is prepared to acknowledge that the entire devotion of a Helen's love is of more worth than the court-bred stately smiles of a princess. He will not again turn a deaf ear, nor give a peevish reply to those arguments which had been made use of in behalf of the " poor physician's daughter;" and which, by the by, might be sculptured, (without offence, we hope,) over the door of the Heralds College, on Bennet's Hill:

" Strange is it, that our bloods,

Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together,
Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off
In differences so mighty.-

--That is honour's scorn,

Which challenges itself as honour's born,
And is not like the sire. Honours best thrive,
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our foregoers: the mere word's a slave,
Debauch'd on every tomb; on every grave
A lying trophy; and as oft is dumb,

Where dust, and damn'd oblivion is the tomb
Of honour'd bones, indeed."

We know not how to palliate the conduct of our young soldier, in his love for that pretty Florentine lass Diana. He was yet in his minority, to be sure; and that Parolles, " a very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness," did his utmost to further the affair; yet still we find it difficult to excuse him. After our utmost moral consideration, we feel it impossible to do any thing better than yield him up to the judgment of the pure and spotless; and they, perhaps, may be merciful, though those, the most conversant in his crime, should, as by usage established, plead in aggravation. But, let it be observed, while Shakspeare chronicles this fault, he allows it to be canvassed, ay, and sharply censured by others:-not by greybeards, who may have forgotten their similar delinquencies, or grown envious of what they but faintly remember, but by the gay, the youthful gallants of the camp; who, while they exclaim against it in bitter reproof, mingle his shame with a fearful consciousness of their own frailty. What severe justice, and what charity here meet together! Shakspeare is not the man to let a libertine escape. In pourtraying male characters, while he is bound to give them the manners of the age, (and they suit the present age as well,) he does not spare the lash; and generally introduces me loving girl, in whose expressions of persevering affection we read the deepest satire on the injustice, the cruelty of the master-sex.

The learned Doctor goes on to tell us, that "he sneaks home to a second marriage;" which is as contrary to the text, as that he travelled in a balloon. The war being ended, he is enforced to return to France, and agrees to marry the Lord Lafeu's daughter, rather as an expiation, than a choice. He will do any thing prescribed for him, otherwise his case is hopeless. In the fifth act Diana enters, accusing him of a breach of promise of marriage, with as much archness as modesty