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ally to melancholy, we should redouble our efforts to acquire a habit of cheerfulness.

I cannot avoid calling the reader's attention to the exquisite picture of nature exhibited in Constance's grief. However foolish, however criminal it may be, to nurse and nourish sorrow, we are all aware of the weakness, and know, as Shakspere did, that in some instances, where the passion is strong, the indulgence of it may almost become a pleasure, and the grief itself an idol. Into which of the mysterious recesses of the heart has Shakspere not entered?

GUILTY CONSCIENCE.

Prospero.

DISARMS COURAGE.

Put thy sword up, traitor:

Who mak'st a shew, but dar'st not strike, thy conscience Is so possessed with guilt: come from thy ward;

For I can here disarm thee with this stick,

And make thy weapon drop.

Tempest. Act i. Scene 2.

K. Henry. Thrice is he arm'd, that hath his quarrel just; And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,

Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

2nd part King Henry VI. Act iii. Scene 2.

Iachimo. The heaviness and guilt within my bosom Takes off my manhood.

Cymbeline. Act v. Scene 2.

Queen. To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,

*

Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

It spills itself, in fearing to be spilt.

Hamlet. Act iv. Scene 5.

GUILTY CONSCIENCE SUSPICIOUS.

Gloster. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;

The thief doth fear each bush an officer.

3rd part King Henry VI. Act v. Scene 6.

* Trifling circumstance.

HARBINGERS OF ILL.

THEIR MISFORTUNE.

Constance. Fellow, begone: I cannot brook thy sightThis news hath made thee a most ugly man.

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King John. Act iii, Scene 1.

Northumberland. The first bringer of unwelcome news Hath but a losing office; and his tongue Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,

Remember'd knolling a departed friend.

2nd part King Henry IV. Act i. Scene 1.

Cleopatra. Though it be honest, it is never good To bring bad news. Give to a gracious message An host of tongues; but let ill-tidings tell

Themselves, when they be felt.

Messenger.

Cleopatra.

I have done my duty.

Go, get thee hence;

Hadst thou Narcissus in thy face, to me

Thou wouldst appear most ugly.

Antony and Cleopatra. Act ii. Scene 5.

THE power of association can scarcely show itself more absurdly than in causing us to visit the bringers of unwel

come news with any portion of the distaste that properly belongs to the news itself. Yet this tendency does exist in the human mind, and it has not escaped Shakspere's observation. It is true there is a class of unamiable per sons who take a malicious pleasure in communicating unpleasing intelligence; and we need not pity them, if they are regarded obliquely through the unfavourable medium of their disagreeable communication; such a punishment would be merely poetical justice; but an innocent messenger of grief has assuredly a sufficient quantity of pain in his very task itself, without having to bear any fancied odium attaching to it.

In a play of Schiller's,* which, for its beauties, deserves to be better known than many that have acquired a wider reputation, I have met with the following pathetic passage referring to this subject, which my readers may like to compare with Shakspere's treatment of it. [Louisa having just been informed by the president's secretary, (master and man equally villainous) that her beloved parents have been seized and imprisoned, her father on the (false) charge of high treason; on the first burst of grief thus apostrophises her malicious informant] :

"Armer Mensch! Du treibst ein trauriges Handwerke, wobei du unmöglich selig werden kannst. Ungluckliche machen ist schon schrechklich genug, aber gräszlich ist, es ihnen verkundigen. Ihn vorzusingen den Eulengesang, dabei zu stehen, wenn das blutende Herz am eisernen Schaft der nothwendigkeit zittert, und Christen an Gott zweifeln! Der Himmel bewahre mich! und würde dir jeder Angstropfe, den du fallen siehst, mit einer Tonne Goldes anf gewogen-ich möchte nicht Du seyn !"

"Wretched man! Thine occupation is a dismal one, in the which 'tis impossible that thou canst e'er be happy. To cause misery, is of itself horrible enough to announce it is still more fearful;-to set up the night-bird's screech,

*Cabale und Liebe.

and then stand by, whilst the bleeding heart quivers so beneath the iron shaft of Destiny, that even Christians well-nigh begin to doubt their God! Heaven keep me! Were every tear of anguish that thou seest now dropping from my eyes, recompensed by a ton of gold, I would not

be thou!

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