481 The wildest paroxysms of passion, the softest delicacy of emotions; the most extravagant accident of fortune, the tenderest incidents of home; the king and the beggar, the sage and the jester, the tyrant and his victim; the maiden from the cloister and the peasant from the mountains; the Italian schoolchild and the Roman matron; the princes of Denmark and the lords of Troy-all these and much more are comprised in the vast embrace of his dominions. Scarcely a rule can be drawn from them, yet each forms a model separately, a finished group in combination. Unconsciously as he weaves his work, apparently without pattern or design, he interlaces and combines in its surface and its depth images of the most charming variety and beauty; now the stern mosaic, without colouring, of an ancient pavement, now the flowing and intertwining arabesque of the fanciful East; now the rude scenes of ancient mediæval tapestry like that of Beauvais, and then the finished and richly-tinted production of the Gobelins loom. And yet through this seeming chaos the light permeates, and that so clear and so brilliant as equally to define and to dazzle. Every portion, every fragment, every particle, stands forth separate and particular, so as to be handled, measured, and weighed in the balance of critic and poet. Each has its own exact form and accurate place, so that, while separately they are beautiful, united they are perfect. Hence their combinations have become sacred rules, and have given inviolable maxims not only to English but to universal literature. Germany, as we have seen, studies with love and almost veneration every page of Shakespeare; national sympathies and kindred speech make it not merely easy but natural to all people of the Teutonic family to assimilate their literature to that its highest standard. France has departed, or is fast departing, from its favourite classical type, and adopting, though with unequal power, the broader and more natural lines of the Shakespearian model. His practice is an example, his declarations are oracles. Still, as I have said, the wide region of intellectual enjoyment over which our great bard exerts dominion, is not one parcelled out or divided into formal and state-like provinces. While the student of science is reading in his chamber the great "Principia" of Newton, he must keep before him the solution of only one problem. On that his mind must undistractedly rest, on that his power of thought be inWoe to him if imagination leads his reason tensely concentrated. into truant wanderings; woe if he drop the thread of finely-drawn deductions! He will find his wearied intelligence drowsily floundering in a sea of swimming figures and evanescent quantities, or floating amidst the fragments of a shipwrecked diagram. But over Shakespeare one may dream no less than pore; we may drop the book from our hand and the contents remain equally before us. Stretched in the shade by a brook in summer, or sunk in the reading chair by the hearth in winter, in the imaginative vigour of health, in the drooping spirits of indisposition, one may read, and allow the trains of fancy which spring up in any scene to pursue their own way, and VOL. IV. (No. 42.) 2 M minister their own varied pleasure or relief; and when by degrees we have become familiar with the inexhaustible resources of his genius, there is scarcely a want in mind or the affections that needs no higher than human succour, which will not find in one or other of his works that which will soothe suffering, comfort grief, strengthen good desires, and present some majestic example to copy, or some fearful phantom. But when we endeavour to contemplate all his infinitely varied conceptions as blended together in one picture, so as to take in, if possible, at one glance the prodigious extent of his prolific genius, we thereby build up what he himself so beautifully called the "fabric of a vision," matchless in its architecture, as in the airiness of its materials. There are forms fantastically sketched in cloud-shapes, such as Hamlet showed to Polonius, in the midst of others rounded and full, which open and unfold ever-changing varieties, now gloomy and threatening, then tipped with gold and tinted with azure, ever-rolling, ever-moving, melting the one into the other, or extricating each itself from the general mass. Dwelling upon this maze of things and imaginations the most incongruous combinations come before the dreamy thought fascinated, spellbound, and entranced. The wild Ardennes and Windsor park seem to run into one another, their firs and their oaks mingle together; the boisterous ocean boiling round "the still vexed Bermoothes" runs smoothly into the lagoons of Venice; the old grey porticoes of republican Rome, like the transition in a dissolving view, are confused and entangled with the slim and fluted pillars of a Gothic hall; here the golden orb, dropped from the hand of a captive king, rolls on the ground side by side with a jester's mouldy skull-both emblems of a common fate in human things. Then the grave chief justice seems incorporated in the bloated Falstaff; king John and his barons are wassailing with Poins and Bardolph at an inn door; Coriolanus and Shylock are contending for the right of human sensibilities; Macbeth and Jacques are moralising together on tenderness even to the brute. And so of other more delicate creations of the poet's mind-Isabella and Ophelia, Desdemona and the Scotch thane's wife produce respectively composite figures of inextricable confusion. And around and above is that filmy world, Ariel and Titania and Peasblossom and Cobweb and Moth, who weave us a gossamer cloud around the vision, dimming it gradually before our eyes, in the last drooping of weariness, or the last hour of wakefulness. Royal Institution of Great Britain. 1865. GENERAL MONTHLY MEETING, Monday, Nov. 6, 1865. SIR HENRY HOLLAND, Bart. M.D. D.C.L. F.R.S. President, in the Chair. Daniel Chauncy Beale, Esq. and were elected Members of the Royal Institution. The Special Thanks of the Meeting were returned for the following addition to "The Donation Fund for the Promotion of Experimental Researches" (see page 151):— Professor Faraday (3rd donation) £20 The PRESENTS received since the last Meeting were laid on the table, and the thanks of the Members returned for the same: viz.— FROM The Board of Trade-Thirteenth Number of Meteorological Papers. 4to. 1865. Russian Government-Annales de l'Observatoire Physique Centrale de Russie. 1862. 4to. 1865. United States, Secretary of the Treasury-Statistics of the Commerce of the United States. 8vo. Washington. 1864. Actuaries, Institute of Assurance Magazine, Nos. 61, 60. 8vo. 1865. Agricultural Society, Royal-Journal. Second Series. Vol. I. Part 2. 8vo. 1865. Airy, G. B. Esq. F.R.Š. Astronomer Royal (the Author)-Essays on the Invasions of Britain, &c. 4to. 1865. American Academy of Arts and Sciences-Proceedings, Vol. VI. 23-38. 8vo. 1864. American Institute of New York-Annual Report, 1861, 1862, 1863. 2 vols. 8vo. 1863. American Philosophical Society-Transactions, Vol. XIII. Part 1. 4to. 1865. Proceedings, Nos. 71, 72. 8vo. 1864. Catalogue of Library, Part 1. 8vo. Antiquaries, Society of Proceedings, Vol. II. No. 6. 8vo. Asiatic Society of Bengal-Journal, Nos. 124, 125, 126. 8vo. 1865. Asiatic Society, Royal-Journal, New Series, Vol. I. Part 2. 8vo. 1865. 2 N Bache, Professor A. D.-Report on the United States Coast Survey for 1862. 8vo. 1864. Bavarian Academy of Science, Royal-Sitzungsberichte, 1865. I. 1-4. 8vo. Belgique, Académie Royale de -Almanach, 1865. 18mo. Bulletins, 1864, 1865. 8vo. Boston Society of Natural History, U.S.-Proceedings, Vol. IX. 21-25. 8vo. 1865. 8vo. 1865. British Association for the Advancement of Science-Report of the Thirty-fourth Meeting, held at Bath, Sept. 1864. 8vo. 1865. Chemical Society-Journal for June-Sept. 1865. 8vo. . Churchill, Messrs.-Quarterly Journal of Science, No. 8. Colenso, Right Rev. John William, D.D. Bishop of Natal tateuch and the Book of Joshua critically Examined. 1863-5. Editors-American Journal of Science, July-Sept. 1865. 8vo. Artizan for July-Oct. 1865. Athenæum for July-Oct. 1865. 4to. 4to. 4to. Chemical News for July-Oct. 1865. Engineer for July-Oct. 1865. fol. Practical Mechanics' Journal for July-Oct. 1865. 4to. (the Author)—The PenNew ed. 5 vols. 8vo. Faraday, Professor, D.C.L. F.R.S.-Kais. Akademie der Wissenschaften. Wien. Sitzungsberichte. Math. Nat. Classe: Abth. I. 1864, Nos. 7-10. 1865, Nos. 1, 2. Abth. II. 1864, Nos. 6-10. 1865, Nos. 1, 2. 8vo. Franklin Institute-Journal, Nos. 473-476. 8vo. 1865. Geographical Society, Royal-Journal, Vol. XXXIV. 8vo. 1864. Geological Institute, Royal, Vienna-Jahrbuch, Band XV. No. 1. 4to. 1865. Georgofili, Accademia dei, Firenze-Atti. Nuovo Serie. Vol. XI. 8vo. 1864. Horticultural Society, Royal-Proceedings, 1865. No. 7. 8vo. Irish Academy, Royal-Proceedings, Vol. VIII. 8vo. 1861-4. Lankester, Edwin, M.D. F.R.S. (the Author)-Ninth Annual Report of the Medical Officer of St. James's. 8vo. 1865. Linnean Society-Journal and Proceedings, No. 35. 8vo. 1865. Transactions, Vol. XXV. Part 1. 1865. 4to. Longman & Co. Messrs.-St. Bartholomew's Hospital Reports, Vol. I. 8vo. 1865. Mechanical Engineers' Institution, Birmingham-Proceedings, Nov. 1864; Jan. 1865. 8vo. Meteorological Society, British-Proceedings, No. 20. 8vo. 1865. Moore, C. Hewitt, Esq. M.R.I. (the Author)—The Antecedents of Cancer. (O 14) 16to. 1865. Photographic Society-Journal, Nos. 159-162. 8vo. 1865. Pickburn, J. T. Esq.-Wm. J. Pinks' History of Clerkenwell. 8vo. 1865. Poggioli, Signor G. A.-Alcuni Scritti di M. A. Poggioli. 8vo. 1862-4. Pratt, Archdeacon John H. (the Author)-Treatise on Attractions, Laplace's Functions, and the Figure of the Earth. 3rd ed. 12mo. 1865. Royal Society of London-Proceedings, No. 76. 8vo. 1865. Philosophical Transactions for 1865, Vol. CLV. Part 1. 4to. 1865. Statistical Society of London-Journal, Vol. XXVIII. Part 2. 8vo. 1865. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, U.S.-Smithsonian Contributions to Knɔw • ledge. Vol. XIV. 4to. 1865. Annual Report for 1863. 8vo. 1864. Meteorological Observations, Vol. II. Part 1. 4to. 1864. Taylor, Alfred S. M.D. F.R.S. (the Author)—Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence. 8vo. 1865. Twining, Henry. Esq. M.R.I. (the Author)-Elements of Picturesque Scenery. Vol. III. Part 1. 8vo. 1865. United Service Institution, Royal-Journal, May-July. 8vo. 1865. Gray, Dr. J. E.-Medallion of Dr. J. E. Gray and Mrs. Gray. GENERAL MONTHLY MEETING, Monday, Dec. 4, 1865. SIR HENRY HOLLAND, Bart. M.D. D.C.L. F.R.S. President, in the Chair. The Hon. Robert Bourke. The Viscount Cranborne, M.P. Sir Edward Hilditch, M.D. and were elected Members of the Royal Institution. LECTURE ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE ENSUING SEASON: Christmas Lectures, 1865-66. (Adapted to a Juvenile Auditory.) Prof. TYNDALL, F.R.S.-Six Lectures 'On Sound.' Before Easter, 1866. Prof. TYNDALL, F.R.S.-Ten Lectures, 'On Heat.' Prof. FRANKLAND, F.R.S. Elements.' - Eight Lectures, On the Non-Metallic Prof. R. WESTMACOTT, R.A. F.R.S.-Six Lectures, 'On Art-Education, and how Works of Art should be viewed.' Rev. G. HENSLOW.-Four Lectures, On Structural and Systematic Botany, considered with reference to Education and Selfinstruction.' After Easter. Prof. FRANKLAND, F.R.S.-Four Lectures, 'On the Non-Metallic Elements.' An Extra Course of Three Lectures, On 'Muscular Contraction,' by Dr. DU BOIS REYMOND. G. SCHARF, Esq. Secretary and Keeper of National Portrait Gallery.— Three Lectures, 'On National Portraits.' Rev. C. KINGSLEY, M.A.-Two Lectures, On Science and Superstition.' Prof. HUXLEY, F.R.S.-Twelve Lectures, 'On the Methods and Results of Ethnology.' Prof. ANSTED, F.R.S.-Five Lectures, 'On the Application of Physical |