FATE.

HEAVEN LEAVES MUCH TO OURSELVES.

Helena. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky Gives us free scope; only doth backward pull Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull.

All's well that ends well. Acti. Scene 1.

Bishop of Carlisle. The means that heaven yields must

be embraced,

And not neglected; else, if heaven would,

And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse.

King Richard II. Act iii. Scene 2.

Cassius. Men at some time are masters of their fates; The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, &c.

Julius Cæsar. Acti. Scene 2.

Thyreus. Wisdom and fortune combating together,

If that the former dare but what it can,

No chance may shake it.

Antony and Cleopatra. Act iii. Scene 11.

FATE, destiny, fortune, chance, accident, necessity, freewill-heavens! what a splendid foundation for an essay of nine volumes! May my readers be content to wait till they receive it from some other pen than mine! I shall content myself with directing their attention to the judicious medium which Shakspere maintains between the extremes of the two doctrines of predestination and freewill-not depriving Providence of its prerogative, and yet shewing us that much remains to be worked out for ourselves.

There is no subject on which mankind have held more various or opposing doctrines. The Mahometan doctrine of fatalism is well-known. Hear how prettily a girl of fourteen years of age can dogmatize in precisely the opposite opinions! Thus wrote Bettine Brentano, that most wonderful of children: (now Madame Von Arnim) *

"We say,' Fate rules over us:' but 'tis we are our own fate we break the threads which bind us to happiness; and tie those which lay an unblest burthen on the heart! an internal spiritual form will shape itself, by means of the external and worldly one: this internal spirit rules, itself, over its own fate, according as may be requisite to its higher organization."

Now without attempting to argue these weighty questions, I think that we may venture to assume, that the real truth lies somewhere in the mean between Mahometanism and little Bettine Brentano-in short, that we have something to do with our fate, but not everything; and that we may, without fear of error, allow the correctness of the Poet's remarks, viz. :-" that our remedies oft in ourselves do lie," and further, that "the means that heaven yields must be embraced, and not neglected."

* Vide "Goethe's Correspondence with a Child." The book should have been called "Correspondence of a Child with Goethe," for her portion of it is by far the

best.

"Schiller's notions on these subjects seem to have been somewhat similar to our Poet's, if we may judge from the following passage, which occurs in his magnificent tragedy "Don Carlos." It is not impossible that he may have imbibed the ideas from Shakspere. It relates to so-called chance, or accident.

"Und was

Ist Zufall anders, als der rohe Stein,

Der Leben annimmt unter Bildner's Hand?
Den Zufall giebt die Vorsehung zum Zwecke
Mufz ihn der Mensch gestalten."

Which may be thus paraphrased:

"What else is accident than the rough stone,
Starting to life beneath the sculptor's hand?
Chance comes from Providence-and 'tis for man
To shape it to his ends."

FOREKNOWLEDGE.

WOULD BE NO ADVANTAGE TO US.

King Henry. Oh heaven! that one might read the book

of fate;

And see the revolution of the times

Make mountains level, and the continent

(Weary of solid firmness) melt itself

Into the sea! And other times, to see

The beachy girdle of the ocean

Too wide for Neptune's hips: how chances mock,
And changes fill the cup of alteration

With divers liquors !—oh, if this were seen,

The happiest youth,-viewing his progress through,
What perils past, what crosses to ensue,-

Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.

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

SOME SLIGHT APPROXIMATION TO IT OBTAINABLE BY

OBSERVATION OF LIFE.

Warwick. There is a history in all men's lives,

Figuring the nature of the times deceased:
The which observ'd, a man may prophesy,

With a near aim, of the main chance of things

As yet not come to life; which in their seeds,
And weak beginnings, lie intreasured.

Such things become the hatch and brood of time.
2nd part King Henry IV. Act iii. Scene 1.

STORIES have been told (and I rather think founded on fact) of persons who placed credit in divination, and whose deaths were foretold by astrologers, or some other mountebanks, and who suffered their imaginations to be so terribly wrought on by expectation of the event, as actually to bring about their own dissolution at the precise time, and thus, by their own means, to fulfil the prophecy. If these stories be true, they form a striking comment on the wisdom and kindness of Providence, in keeping from us a knowledge of future events. The manner in which Shakspere has made this reflexion break upon the mind of King Henry, who had been just wishing for such foreknowledge, is exceedingly fine. The objection to such foreknowledge is not, in my opinion, that the sum of pain in man's life would always exceed that of pleasure; so much as that man is unable to anticipate suffering, though comparatively small, with any sort of complacency; and that the whole amount during his existence would effectually scare him from its endurance if placed before his view at once.

Nevertheless, as Shakspere has in his deep knowledge observed, by observation of the history of man's life, we may make such calculations as to probabilities, as may enable us to exercise a due degree of wisdom in our own schemes, and shrewdness in viewing the future conduct of others. With this let us be content.