now sound like truisms. A general infection of truth and sententiousness possesses the play. Even poor Polonius, moralizes as well as Dr. Johnson ever did. Ophelia herself is too wise for one so young and so beautiful. The King hiccups aphorisms. And the progress of the wild prince, himself overflowing with proverbs, amid this wilderness of wisdom, has a very strange and startling effect. The most natural character in Hamlet is the Ghost. He is really a glorious creation that old fellow in the cellarage. It is easy criticising him at noonday, or in the company of several hundreds; but when you meet with him alone, or at midnight, your criticism curdles up into terror. Shakspere was well acquainted with supernatural etiquette. He knew that ghosts should make short calls, and that a yawn is more effectual than the crowing of the cock, in remanding them to limbo. With the exception of the apparition in Job, Shakspere's Ghost is the first of that shadowy company. In touching upon Shakspere's creed, I feel treading upon thin ice. Outwardly, I suppose, he conformed to the rites and worship of the English Church. His writings abound with passages which display an us at a distance from his real internal views. Like many thinking intimate knowledge of the tenets of Christianity. But all this keeps men, he had a formula or catechism of his own. With 66 Listen to his words Like the baseless fabric of this vision, with Hazlitt, that "if you would see the greatness of human genius, regard to Shakspere's critics and commentators, I will not say read Shakspere, if you would see the smallness of human learning, read his commentators." But I will say, that I have learned more of very soul. Shakspere from Hazlitt, than from any other quarter, except from of his kind. With august Philanthropists, Howard or Wilberforce, I close by claiming a high place for this Poet among the benefactors We may not class him. where Milton and Dante dwelt, he came only sometimes, not for want of power, but because his sphere was a wider and larger one-he had Into that seventh heaven of invention, business to do in the veins of the earth as well as in the azure depth of air. But if force of genius-sympathy with every form and every feeling of humanity-the heart of a man united to the imagination of a poet, and wielding the Briarean hands of a demigod-if the writing of fifty-two plays which are colouring to this hour the literature of the world-if the diffusion of harmless happiness in immeasurable quantity-if the stimulation of innumerable minds-if the promotion of the spirit of Christian charity and of universal brotherhood-if these constitute for mortal man titles to the name of benefactor, and to that praise which ceases not with the sun, but expands into immortality, the name and the praise must support the throne which Shakspere has established over the minds of the inhabitants of an earth which may be known in other parts of the universe, as "Shakspere's world." Nineveh and its Remains. By AUSTEN HENRY LAYARD, Esq., D.C.L. London: John Murray. 1849. The remarkable interest which attaches to these volumes arises from several causes- -the first, if not the most influential of which, is the character of the author himself. Mr. Layard's literary qualifications, instead of needing that apology which his modesty has induced him to make in his preface, are of a very superior kind, and would have sufficed to communicate interest to a much dryer subject, or to extract lessons of wisdom from a much less instructive one than that is which he has treated. His perceptions are acute, and his delineations vivid and striking in a high degree-so much so that we are tempted to suspect he has permitted his imagination to have very free scope in some instances-not certainly to falsify occurrences, but to communicate to them a degree of dramatic effect, which the prosaic scenes of actual life seldom present. This applies particularly to the representations of the children of the desert-their doings and their speeches. No doubt, they are a peculiar people; their speech and their life are poetry; and prosaic Franks are no judges of what such untamed creatures may do or say. But it is not solely, or even chiefly, his literary ability which renders his writing entertaining, the character of the man himself is such as cannot fail to interest all those readers who admire singleness of purpose, and enthusiastic devotion to an object felt to be worthy of such devotion, united to a high degree of ingenuity, courage, and perseverance. Independently altogether of the value of the quarry, we sympathize with the skill and earnestness displayed in the chase ; and even if Mr. Layard's researches had throwni no light upon the past, or furnished no present instruction, still his book must have been read with instruction and delight. He thus introduces himself to his readers. Vol I., p. 1. "During the autumn of 1839 and winter of 1840, I had been wandering through Asia Minor and Syria, scarcely leaving untrod one spot hallowed by tradition, or unvisited one ruin consecrated by history. I was accompanied by one no less curious and enthusiastic than myself. We were both equally careless of comfort and unmindful of danger. We rode alone; our arms were our only protection; a valise behind our saddles was our wardrobe, and we tended our own horses, except when relieved from the duty by the hospitable inhabitants of a Turcoman village or an Arab tent. Thus unembarrassed by needless luxuries, and uninfluenced by the opinions and prejudices of others, we mixed amongst the people, acquired without effort their manners, and enjoyed without alloy those emotions which scenes so novel, and spots so rich in varied association, cannot fail to produce. "I look back with feelings of grateful delight to those happy days when, free and unheeded, we left at dawn the humble cottage or cheerful tent, and lingering as we listed, unconscious of distance and of the hour, found ourselves, as the sun went down, under some hoary ruin tenanted by the wandering Arab, or in some crumbling village still bearing a well-known name. No experienced dragoman measured our distances and appointed our stations. We were honoured with no conversations by pashas, nor did we seek any civilities from governors. We neither drew tears nor curses from villagers by seizing their horses, or searching their houses for provisions; their welcome was sincere; their scanty fare was placed before us; we ate, and came and went in peace. "I had traversed Asia Minor and Syria, visiting the ancient seats of civilization, and the spots which religion has made holy. I now felt an irresistible desire to penetrate to the regions beyond the Euphrates, to which history and tradition point as the birthplace of the wisdom of the West. Most travellers, after a journey through the usually frequented parts of the East, have the same longing to cross the great river, and to explore those lands which are separated on the map, from the confines of Syria, by a vast blank stretching from Aleppo to the banks of the Tigris. A deep mystery hangs over Assyria, Babylonia, and Chaldæa. With these names are linked great nations and great cities dimly shadowed forth in history; mighty ruins in the midst of deserts, defying, by their very desolation and lack of definite form, the description of the traveller; the remnants of mighty races still roving over the land; the fulfilling and fulfilment of prophecies; the plains to which the Jew and the Gentile alike look as the cradle of their race. After a journey in Syria the thoughts naturally turn eastward; and without treading on the remains of Nineveh and Babylon our pilgrimage is incomplete. "I left Aleppo, with my companion, on the 13th of March. We still travelled as we had been accustomed-without guide or servants. The road across the desert is at all times impracticable, except to a numerous and well-armed caravan, and offers no object of interest. We preferred that through Bir and Orfa. From the latter city we traversed the low country at the foot of the Kurdish hills, a country little known, and abounding in curious remains. The Egyptian frontier, at that time, extended to the east of Orfa, and the war between the Sultan and Mohammed Ali Pasha being still unfinished, the tribes took advantage of the confusion, and were plundering on all sides. With our usual good fortune, we succeeded in reaching Nisibin unmolested, although we ran daily risks, and more than once found ourselves in the midst of foraging parties, and of tents which, an hour before, had been pillaged by the wandering bands of Arabs. We entered Mosul on the 10th of April." In the course of the volumes numerous highly dramatic sketches are given of his management of the Arabs, as well as of the Turks, and other dwellers in Mesopotamia or the neighbouring countriessketches which show in the most satisfactory manner that the author possesses in a high degree the proper gifts of a traveller; and among the rest, that intuitive insight into men's true characters which experience may greatly improve, but which no culture can communicate originally, it being, as much as poetry, or music, an endowment of nature. Besides many other examples which might be mentioned, it may suffice to refer to his mode of recovering his stolen property by seizing the Sheik of a thievish tribe of Beduins, and his adroit me thod of reducing to their senses his workmen, who had adopted the European and civilized expedient of striking for advance of wages. A second source of the interest which attaches to the work before us, is to be found in the character of the countries which are the scenes of the author's travels and descriptions, and of the various tribes which occupy them. Mesopotamia, Assyria, Babylonia, Chaldæa, the regions now inhabited by the Tayari, Nestorians, or Chaldean Christians, possess the double attraction for us of having been the seats of mighty empires, as well as the scenes of those great events in the youth of the world, with which the venerable records of the book of Genesis have impressed our imaginations from infancy; and of having almost sunk out of view for centuries-having been so little visited by modern travellers that that old land of wonders rises up before us afresh; the four millenniums which separate us from the Father of the faithful appear to be obliterated, and the childhood and old age of the world to meet again, as if the great deep of time and the deserts of oblivion had never divided them. These combined circumstances could not fail to originate a powerful interest even in the hands of one who had less capacity to turn them to account, and to supply additional sources of pleasure than the present author possesses. The very mention of those countries carries us back at once to Ur of the Chaldees, the original seat of the family of Abraham; to Charan their temporary place of sojourning; to Padan-Aram; to Laban and Jacob, and Rebekah, and Rachel, and Leah. And, then, passing on the stream of time, names romantic by their obscurity rise up before us. Ninus, Simiramis, Sardanapalus and our mind's eye rests on the mysterious tower, whose top should reach unto heaven; on Babylon, Sileucia, Ctesephon, and, above all, on "Nineveh the great," that city of three days journey, "in which there were more than six score thousand persons that could not discern between their right hand and their left;" and on Jonah, that perverse prophet, whose wonderous story illustrates so well the petulence of man and the long-suffering of God. As if to confirm the speculations of the older Ethnographers who fancied that climate determined in every country the political, the social, and even the moral condition of its inhabitants, we here read much that so forcibly recalls the delineations of Moses, that we are tempted to surmise there may be more foundation for that doctrine than modern enquirers are pleased to allow; or at least that men are every where the creatures of circumstances, and that the same influences produce the same feelings and conduct, with great uniformity, in the case of the bulk of men. The following extracts will be found not only to illustrate some of these remarks, but in themselves to be interesting. "The middle of March in Mesopotamia is the brightest epoch of spring. A new change had come over the face of the plain of Nimroud. Its pasture lands, known as the Jalif,' are renowned for their rich and luxuriant herbage. In times of quiet, the studs of the Pasha and of the Turkish authorities, with the horses of the cavalry and of the inhabitants of Mosul, are sent here to graze. Day by day they arrived in long lines. The Sheumutti and Jehesh left their huts, and encamped on the greensward which surrounded the villages. The plain, as far as the eye could reach, was studded with the white pavilions of the Hytas and the black tents of the Arabs. Picketed around them were innumerable horses in gay trappings, struggling to release themselves from the bonds, which restrained them from ranging over the green pastures. "Flowers of every hue enamelled the meadows; not thinly scattered over the grass as in northern climes, but in such thick and gathering clusters that the whole plain seemed a patchwork of many colours. The dogs, as they returned from hunting, issued from the long grass dyed red, yellow, or blue, according to the flowers through which they had last forced their way. 66 "The villages of Naifa and Nimroud were deserted, and I remained alone with Said, and my servants. The houses now began to swarm with vermin; we no longer slept under the roofs, and it was time to follow the example of the Arabs. I accordingly encamped on the edge of a large pond on the outskirts of Nimroud. Said accompanied me; and Salah, his young wife, a bright-eyed Arab girl, built up his shed, and watched and milked his diminutive flock of sheep and goats. "I was surrounded by Arabs, who had either pitched their tents, or, too poor to buy the black goat-hair cloth of which they are made, had erected small huts of reeds and dry grass. "In the evening after the labour of the day, I often sat at the door of my tent, and giving myself up to the full enjoyment of that calm and repose which are imparted to the senses by such scenes as these, gazed listlessly on the varied groups before me. As the sun went down behind the low hills which separate the river from the desert-even their rocky sides had struggled to emulate the verdant clothing of the plain-its receding rays were gradually withdrawn, like a transparent veil of light, from the landscape. Over the pure, cloudless sky, was the glow of the last light. The great mound threw its dark shadow far across the plain. In the distance, and beyond the Zab, Keshaf, another venerable ruin, rose indistinctly into the evening mist. Still more distant, and still more indistinct was a solitary hill overlooking the ancient city of Arbela. The Kurdish mountains, whose snowy summits cherished the dying sunbeams, yet struggled with the twilight. The bleating of sheep and lowing of cattle, at first faint, became louder as the flocks returned from their pastures, and wandered amongst the tents. Girls hurried over the greensward to seek their fathers' cattle, or crouched down to milk those which had returned alone to their well-remembered folds. Some were coming from the river bearing the replenished pitcher on their heads or shoulders; others, no less graceful in their form, and erect in their carriage, were carrying the heavy load of long grass which they had cut in the meadows. Sometimes a party of horsemen might have been seen in the distance slowly crossing the plain, the tufts of ostrich feathers which topped their long spears showing darkly against the evening sky. They would ride up to my tent, and give me the usual salutation, Peace be with you, O Bey, or, Allah Aienak, God help you.' Then driving the end of their lances into the ground, they would spring from their mares, and fasten their halters to the still quivering weapons. Seating themselves on the 6 |