of a common impression. For the influences under which we live cannot but generate more uniformity of character; thus making us apt to regard as monstrous that rankness of growth, those great crimes and great virtues, which are recorded of earlier times, and which furnish the material of deep tragedy. For the process of civilization, if it does not kill out the aptitudes for heroic crime, at least involves a constant discipline of prudence, that keeps them in a more decorous reserve. But suppose the pressure of conventional motives and restraints to be wanting, and it will not then appear so very incredible that there should be just such spontaneous outcomings of wicked impulse, just such redundant transpirations of original sin, as are there displayed. Accordingly, while we are amid the Poet's scenes, and subject to his power, he seems to enlarge our knowledge of nature, not to contradict it; but when we fall back and go to comparing his shows with our experiences, he seems rather to have beguiled us with illusions, than edified us with truth. All which, we suspect, is more our fault than his. And that criticism is best, which is born rather of what he makes us, than of what we are without him.

In speaking of the several characters of the play, we scarce know where to begin. Much has been written upon them, and the best critics seem to have been so raised and kindled by the theme as to surpass themselves. The persons of the drama are variously divisible into groups, according as we regard their domestic or their moral affinities. We prefer to consider them as grouped upon the latter principle. And as the main action of the piece is shaped by the prevailing energy of evil, we will begin with those from whom that energy springs.

There is no accounting for the conduct of Goneril and Regan but by supposing them possessed with a very instinct and original impulse of malignity. The main points of their action, as we have seen, were taken from the old story. Character, in the proper sense of the term, they have none in the legend; and the Poet but invested them

with characters suitable to the part they were believed to have acted.

Whatever of soul these beings possess, is all in the head: they have no heart to guide or inspire their understanding; and but enough of understanding to seize occasions and frame excuses for their heartlessness. Without affection, they are also without shame; there being barely so much of human blood in their veins, as may serve to quicken the brain, without sending a blush to the cheek. Their hypocrisy acts as the instructive cunning of selfishness; with a sort of hell-inspired tact they feel their way to a fit occasion, but drop the mask as soon as their ends are reached. There is a smooth, glib rhetoric in their professions of love, unwarmed with the least grace of real feeling, and a certain wiry virulence and intrepidity of thought in their after-speaking, that is almost terrific. No touch of nature finds a response in their bosoms; no atmosphere of comfort can abide their presence: we feel that they have somewhat within that turns the milk of humanity into venom, which all the wounds they can inflict are but opportunities for casting.

The subordinate plot of the drama serves the purpose of relieving the improbability of their conduct towards their father. Some, indeed, have censured this plot as an embarrassment to the main one; forgetting, perhaps, that to raise and sustain the feelings at any great height, there must be some breadth of basis. A degree of evil, which, if seen altogether alone, would strike us as superhuman, makes a very different impression, when it has the support of proper sympathies and associations. This effect is in a good measure secured by Edmund's independent con currence with Goneril and Regan in wickedness. It looks as if some malignant planet had set the elements of evil astir in several hearts at the same time; so that "unnaturalness between the child and the parent" were become, sure enough, the order of the day.

Besides, the agreement of the sister-fiends in filial in gratitude might seem, of itself, to argue some sisterly at

achment between them. So that, to bring out their charcter truly, it had to be shown, that the same principle. which united them against their father would, on the turnng of occasion, divide them against each other. Hence the necessity of bringing them forward in relations adapted to set them at strife. In Edmund, accordingly, they find -. character wicked enough, and energetic enough in his wickedness, to interest their feelings; and because they are oth alike interested in him, therefore they will cut their ray to him through each other's life. Be it observed, too, That their passion for Edmund grows out of his treachery o his father; as though from such similarity of action they nferred a congeniality of mind. For even to have hated ach other from love of any one but a villain, and because f his villainy, had seemed a degree of virtue.

Having said so much, perhaps we need not add, that The action of Goneril and Regan seems to us the most ncredible thing in the play. Nor are we quite able to hake off the feeling, that before the heart could get so horoughly ossified the head must cease to operate. On he whole, we find it not easy to think of Goneril and Regan otherwise than as instruments of the plot; not so uch ungrateful persons as personifications of ingratitude. And it is considerable that they both appear of nearly the same mind and metal; are so much alike in character, that we can scarce distinguish them as individuals.

For the union of wit and wickedness, Edmund stands next to Richard and Iago. His strong and nimble intelect, his manifest courage, his energy of character, and is noble, manly person and presence, prepare us on our irst acquaintance to expect from him not only great underakings, but great success in them. But while his peronal advantages naturally generate pride, his disgraces of fortune are such as, from pride, to generate guilt. The circumstances of our first meeting with him, the mater and manner of Gloster's conversation about him and o him, sufficiently explain his conduct; while the subsequent outleakings of his mind in soliloquy let us into his

secret springs of action. With a mixture of guilt, shame and waggery, his father, before his face, and in the pres ence of one whose respect he craves, makes him and his birth the subject of gross and wanton discourse; con fesses himself ashamed yet compelled to acknowledge him; avows the design of keeping him from home, as if to avoid the shame of his presence; and makes comparisons between him and "another son some year elder than this," such as could hardly fail at once to wound his pride, to stimulate his ambition, and awaken his enmity. Thus the kindly influences of human relationship and household ties are turned to their contraries. He feels himself the victim of a disgrace for which he is not to blame; which he can never hope to outgrow; which no degree of personal worth can ever efface; and from which he sees no escape but in pomp and circumstance of worldly power.

Nor is this all. Whatever aptitudes he may have to filial piety are thwarted by his father's open impiety towards his mother. Nay, even his duty to her seems to cancel his obligations of love to him; the religious awe with which we naturally contemplate the mystery of our coming hither, and the mysterious union of those who brought us hither, is kept out of mind by his father's levity respecting his birth and her who bore him. Thus the very beginnings of religion are stifled in him by the impossibility of revering his parents: there is no sanctity about the origin and agents of his being, to inspire him with awe: as they have no religion towards each other, so he can have none towards them. He can only despise them for being his parents; and the consciousness, that he is himself a living monument of their shame, tends but to pervert and poison the felicities of his nature.

Moreover, by his residence and education abroad, he is cut off from the fatherly counsels and kindnesses which might else cause him to forget the disgraces entailed upon him. His shame of birth, however, nowise represses his pride of blood: on the contrary, it furnishes the conditions wherein such pride, though the natural auxiliary of many

virtues, is most apt to fester into crime. For while his shame begets scorn of family ties, his pride passes into greediness of family possessions: the passion for hereditary honors is unrestrained by domestic attachments; no love of Edgar's person comes in to keep down a lust for his distinctions; and he is led to envy as a rival the brother whom he would else respect as a superior.

Always thinking, too, of his dishonor, he is ever on the lookout for signs that others are thinking of it; and the jealousy thus engendered construes every show of respect into an effort of courtesy;-a thing which inflames his ambition while chafing his pride. The corroding suspicion, that others are perhaps secretly scorning his noble descent while outwardly acknowledging it, leads him to ind or fancy in them a disposition to indemnify themselves for his personal superiority out of his social debasement. The stings of reproach, being personally unmerited, are resented as wrongs; and with the plea of injustice he can easily reconcile his mind to the most wicked schemes. Aware of Edgar's virtues, still he has no relentings, but shrugs his shoulders, and laughs off all compunctions with an "I must," as if justice to himself were sufficient excuse for his criminal purposes.

With "the plague of custom" and "the curiosity of nations" Edmund has no compact: he did not consent to them, and therefore is not bound by them. He came into the world in spite of them; and may he not thrive in the world by outwitting them? Perhaps he owes his gifts to a breach of them: may he not, then, use his gifts to circumvent them? Since his dimensions are so well compact, his mind so generous, and his shape so true, he prefers nature as she has made him to nature as she has placed him; and freely employs the wit she has given, to compass the wealth she has withheld. Thus our philosopher appeals from convention to nature and, as usually happens in such cases, takes only so much of nature as will serve his turn. For convention is itself a part of nature; it be ing just as natural that men should grow up together in