HAZLITT'S CHARACTERS OF SHAESPEARE'S PLAYS.

THIS third edition of a keen an pithy work, by an acute rather than a profound or instructed critic, is published in the shape and style of the cheap editions of' Bstaost, &c., with the view, if suc- cessful, of combining the more popular writings of WILLIAM BAZLITT in one cheap, elegant, and uniform series of volumes. Their pointed and startling composition will be welcome as a relief to the dash, or measured dulness of the existing race of writers, even if they had no other recommendations. In again going over the essays before us, we cannot, however, assert that they have sustained their conventional celebrity, or re- vived the admiration with which we formerly perused them. What we whilom considered penetrating or profound, now seems the effect of an odd and striking manlier of presenting obvious truths: what once had the effect of originality, appears not unfrequently a paradox. The writer, too, often attains his purpose by "damnable iteration." He does not master the nature of his sub- ject, and by simply presenting it in its essential characteristics, impress it strongly on the mind; but he sets before the reader a number of images, which by comparison or contrast, vividly reflect the original to those acquainted with it, but would convey dim and scanty ideas to any one to whom it was unknown. Parts, moreover, are vitiated by a taint of Cockneyism, in its shape of unseemly familiarity with SHAKSPEARE, his characters, and the reader. And the distinguishing character of the whole is a criti- cism of perception rather than of principles. These peculiarities have, however, conduced to the production of a few very striking passages; amongst which are these powerful remarks on Ham- let,—so powerful that we will not stop to analyze their entire truth.

" Hamlet is a oame; his Aweebes and savings but the idle coinage of the poet's brain. What, then, are they not real ?—They are as real as our own thoughts. Their reality is in the reader's mind. It is we who are Hamlet. This play has a prophetic truth, which is above that of history. Whoever has become thoughtful and melancholy through his own mishaps or these of others; whoever has borne about with him the clouded brow of reflection, and thought leinself , too much in the sun ;' whoever has seen the golden lamp of day dimmed by envious mists rising in his own breast, nod could find in the world before him only a dull blank with nothing left remarkable in it ; whoever has

known ' the pangs of despised love, the insolence of office, or the spurns which patient merit of the unworthy takes :' he who has felt his mind sink within him, and sadness cling to his heart like a malady, who has had his hopes

blighted and his youth staggered by the apparitions of orange things; who cannot be well at ease' while he fees evil hovering near hint like a spectre; whose powers of action have been eaten up by thought ; he to whom the nee'. verse seems infinite, and himself nothing ; whose bitterness of soul makes him careless of cousequences; and who goes to a play as his last resource, to drive off to a second remove the evils of life by a muck repreaention of them,—this is the true Hamlet."

Touching upon particular criticisms, it may be said that HAZ- LITT'S .ectount of Lear is the best, and that Hamlet takes the next place. In Macbeth, be scarcely does justice to the extraordi- nary art of the action, to the wild grotesque grandeur and the propriety of the supernatural machinery, or to the depth and beauty of the poetry : the criticism, in fact, is out of sight beneath the drama. In Othello, he defends SUAKsPRARE from a pretty common charge, that the chancier of Ingo is " unnatural because his villany is without a sufficient motive ;" but he attributes it "to the love of power, another name for the love of mischief, which Shakapeare knew is natural to man." There is no occasion to seek for logo's motives or canduct in any such abstrac- tions or refinements. They are obvious, natural, and immediately connected with the persons of the drama. He had the same motive as Othello—jealousy. It did not, indeed, drive him to mur- der his wife, but developed itself in a manner congenial to his nature—constant ill-treatment of Emilia, and perpetual brooding in secret over his suspected wrong, with anxiety to revenge it : "the thought wherecf

Doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards; And nothing can or shall content my soul, Till I am even with him, wife for wife."

To this gnawing suspicion of his dishonour is added the injus- tice and injury done him in the promotion of Cassio over his head ; enough with many men to induce ill feeling, and with a man like lago to create a deadly hatred both against Othello and his favourite. It must also be borne in mind, that the tragic conse- quences were not at first intended or foreseen by Iago. His ob- jects are to cheat Roderigo, to displace Cassio and promote him- self, to torment the Moor by the same doubts and rankling jealousy which he suffers, and by breeding matrimonial distrust eventually to dishonour him. W hen a darker result than be contemplated is purposed, he consents to the bloody vengeance of the Moor; he even forwards it, and without remorse; but it is upon compulsion, as his designs against Roderigo are matter of neces- sity.. An indifference to human life was the characteristic of Iago 's age and country ; but he is not wanton in shedding blood; his intended murders are a calculation of consequences.

" Live Roderigo He calls me to a restitution large

Of gold, and jewels, that 1 bobbed from him IIIIIAs gifts to Desdemona; It must not be: if Cassio do remain, He hash a daily beauty in his life, That makes me ugly : and besides, the Moor May unfold me to him; there stand lin much peril! No, be must die! " The points in Iago's character might be considerably extended ; and a volume might be written on the truth in the conception, the consummate art in the plan and conduct, and the exquisite attention to the tninutest parts of this wonderful tragedy ; and that care bestowed, not for the sake of excellence of expression, but to enrich as it were the life-blood of the drama. In the columns of the Spectator this cannot be; but we will not leave the sub- ject, thus incidentally brought before us, without noticing the many morals of Othello. When the tragic results ensue, which lago with all his worldly ability could neither foresee nor control, we are taught the danger of setting any evil elements in motion, from human incapacity to limit or direct their course. Jammu'', designedly drawn out by an objection of Bosweet, pronounced that the moral as to jealousy was perfect, as well as of that very impor- tant one—unequal marriages. The play, however, not only illus- trates these in the fullest extent, but it shows how pregnant with danger is the imprudent indulgence of the best affections, and what suspicions follow a deviation from right even in the minds of those for whom we deviate. The disproportion between Othello and Desdemona in years, country, education, habits of life and of thought, were in themselves grounds for future jars—combustibles that accident might kindle had no Iago been ; and one great ele- ment of his success is Desdemona's clandestine conduct.

taco. She did deceive her father, marrying you;

And when she seemed to Amite and fear your looks, She loved them most

OrlieLt 0. And so she did.

taco. Why, go to, then : She that, so young, could give out such a awning, To nerd her fatker's eyes up, close as oak,— He thought 'twos witchcraft."

Another, and a very important moral, is the detection and punishment of wickedness at the moment it attains its ends; and that through its own nature. lago had guarded himself, and for that matter, his victim, as well as possible upon all points where a selfish prudence could avail ; but, incapable of fully compre- hending honour or even wild virtue, he never calculated that Othello would betray himself by confessing the murder.

Let us linger a moment, too, upon another mural, even of

wider application— •

" Then must you speak Of one that loved, not wisely, but too

An affection indulged to excess, or carried beyond what the posi- tion of the parties or the worth of the regarded warrants, or excited to render superfluous service, is, in the long run, destruc- tive of its own existence, and injurious to the peace of those in- dulging it, in other things beside love and friendship. The " sur- tout point de zile, monsieur" of TALLEYRAND is, in matters of diplomacy and business, only an offshoot of " n it wisely, but too well," us is the " ne quid 'Mills " of the Romans in e it and festi- vity. A survey of the Greek philosophy will lead us to the same conclusion : " wisely," not " too well," was the essence of their conclusions as to passion and fortune—to inward or outward things ; only the Cynics despised, and the Stoics professed ti rise above, what the wiser EPICuLtus avoided.