gracious marks of her favour: it at any time, and almost equal to is that maiden princess plainly whom he intends by "-a fair vestal, throned by the west." Midsummer Night's Dream. And that whole passage is a compliment very properly brought in, and very handsomely applied to her. She was so well pleased with that admirable character of that profuse generosity the present age has shewn to French dancers and Italian singers. What particular habitude or friendships he contracted with private men, no one has been able to learn, more than that every one, who had a true taste of merit, and could distinguish men, had gene Falstaff, in the Two Parts of rally a just value and esteem for Henry the Fourth, that she com- him. His exceeding candour and manded him to continue it for one good-nature must certainly have play more, and to shew him in inclined all the gentler part of the love. This is said to be the occa- world to love him, as the power of sion of his writing The Merry his wit obliged the men of the Wives of Windsor. How well most delicate knowledge and poshe was obeyed, the play itself lite learning to admire hin. is an admirable proof. He had the honour to meet with many great and uncommon marks of favour and friendship from the Earl of Southampton, famous in the histories of that time for his friendship to the unfortunate Earl of Essex. It was to that noble lord that he dedicated his poem of Venus and Adonis. There is one instance so singular in the magnificence of this patron of Shakspeare, that if we had not been assured that the story was handed down by Sir William D'Avenant, who was probably very well acquainted with his affairs, we should not have ventured to have inserted and afterwards to recommend Mr. it; that my Lord Southampton at Jonson and his writings to the one time gave him a thousand public. Jonson was certainly a pounds, to enable him to go very good scholar, and in that had through with a purchase which the advantage of Shakspeare; he heard he had a mind to. A though at the same time we believe bounty very great, and very rare it must be allowed, that what na His acquaintance with Ben Jonson began with a remarkable piece of humanity and good-nature: Mr. Jonson, who was at that time altogether unknown to the world, had offered one of his plays to the players, in order to have it acted; and the persons into whose hands it was put, after having turned it carelessly and superciliously over were just upon returning it to him with an ill-natured answer, that it would be of no service to their company; when Shakspeare luckily cast his eye upon it, and found something so well in it, as to engage him first to read it thro' ture gave the latter, was more than a balance for what books had given the former; and the judgement of a great man* upon this occasion was, we think, very just and proper. But the sharpness of the satire is said to have stung the man so severely, that he never forgave it. He died in the 53d year of his age, and was buried on the north side of the chancel, in the great church at Stratford, where a monument is placed on the wall. On his grave-stone underneath is"Good friend for Jesus' sake forbear To dig the dust inclosed here, Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones. This is what can be learned of any note relating to him; the character of the man is best seen in his writings. But since Ben Jonson has made a sort of essay of it in his Discoveries, we will give it in his own words: "I remem The latter part of his life was spent, as all men of good sense will wish theirs may be, in ease, retirement, and the conversation of his friends. He had the good fortune to gather an estate equal to his occasion, and, in that, to his wish; and is said to have spent some years before his death at his native Stratford. His pleasurable wit and good-nature engaged him in the acquaintance, and entitled him to the friendship, of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood. Amongst them, it is a story, almost still remembered in that country, that he had a particular intimacy with Mr. Combe, an old ber the players have often mengentleman noted thereabouts for tioned it as an honour to Shakhis wealth and his usury: it hap-speare, that in writing (whatever pened, that in a pleasant conver- he penned) he never blotted out a sation amongst their common line. My answer hath been, friends, Mr. Combe told Shakspeare in a laughing manner, that he fancied he intended to write his epitaph, if he happened to outlive him; and since he could not know what might be said of him when he was dead, he desired it might be done immediately: upon which Shakspeare gave him these four verses: "Ten in the hundred lies here ingra- 'Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not • Mr. Hales, Would he had a blotted a thousand! which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by, wherein he most faulted: and to justify mine own candour, for I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature, had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions; wherein he flowed with that facility, that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so too. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues; there Travels. (Concluded from page 28.) The young women place themselves by the men, and begin songs of love or war, of fabulous adventure, or heroic achievement. Thus was ever more in him to be praised the fete is kept up, the guests than pardoned." less fame, passing the cup round, and singing the whole time, until the stock of liquor is expended. As for their dances, they consist more of movements of the hands and arms than of the feet. Their love of gambling is so great, that they will spend entire nights at play, and lose in a single sitting the whole of what they possess, even to the clothes upon their body.Wretched and revolting as their appearance is to more civilized people, they would be indeed miserable, if compelled to change their mode of living for ours. "The Calmucks form large settlements in the neighbourhood of Taganrog. Their camps were numerous at the time of our visit: When he destroyed the tree, whose both Calmuck men and women branches wild sweetest child." Were taught to spread by "Fancy's Immortal Shakspeare! I have warmly felt Each word that thou hast written-I have knelt With awe enthusiastic on thy grave, 'Till I have seen thy form above me wave. Oh! of thy genius would'st thou deign to throw A single ray upon thy vo'try's brow, Then on my lyre I'd strike the note) divine, Summon with bold command the sisters nine. And all my soul should breathe in ev'ry glowing line.. were seen galloping their horses, through the streets of the town, or lounging in the public places. "We visited one of the largest camps, near the town, and found the earth all around their tents, covered with the mutilated carcases of dead rats, cats, dogs, suslies, and babaes. The number of Calmucks in the Russian empire has diminished, since the establishment of provincial govern ments, and the division of lands, Ellis, who on her side most truly owing to their being more confined loved her sailor, in spite of all his to limited situations. Frequent faults, real or supposed, and the attempts have been made, and are one list was equal to the other; daily making, to induce them to for calumny, like the raven, is form a regular settlement. Like fond of preying on the dying and all wandering tribes, particularly the dead. Had the father of the Laplanders and Gipsies, they are maiden consented to their union, so much accustomed to an uncon- it is most probable that the life of trolled and vagrant life, that Richard would have been honornothing but extreme indigence able to himself, and useful to his can compel them to cultivate land, country; but old Ellis was one of and to reside in any fixed habita- those heartless, selfish beings, who love their children only as they minister to their own comfort, or gratification: he wished to see his daughter married to a rich man, not because those riches might make her lot more comfortable, but because a rich son-in-law tion." TRUTH AND FICTION. RICHARD CLIFTON was one of those wild, yet commanding spirits, that are great in good or evil, added to his own importance. according to the more or less fa- Such a proposal, therefore, excitvourable circumstances, in which ed his warmest indignation; it they may happen to be placed. was a cutting up of all his prosHis earliest years had been de-pects, of the hopes that he had been voted to the navy, where by his toiling to realise for many years; own unassisted merit he had risen she would be a beggar and an to the rank of first lieutenant; outcast-the alliance was infamy. when a blow, given to his superior In all this, however, there was officer, thrust him on the world, much more regard shown for hima pennyless outcast. The same self than for his child; and Lucy energies, which had before made felt that there was. This was the him the best of seamen, now ren-corner-stone of the subsequent dered him the worst of citizens; evils: the harshness of her father for power is like the fiend that, once called up, must have something to employ it, or it falls on its master. There was a blight on his fame and on his hopes, yet still there was one chance for him; he had long been attached to Lucy the man she adored. Richard made her more open to the false flatteries of her lover; though at the same time she was not altogether ignorant of her own weakness: in the hour of temptation she flung herself on the honour of execut Sion th Dess to chant pruden great advent with like t and w destitu crushe of di pleade theirs. to you you ex -was most tra of all his left the town and joined a band of smugglers, and was either kiland the led, or drowned, or had fled the e other country; for each of these reports aven, i ing an r of the union e life honor. had its particular defenders. The dishonour of Lucy soon became too gross for concealment. he was deeply indebted, and who had formerly been a fruitless intercessor for poor Lucy. Some, too, were actuated by less interested motives, and were glad to shelter their hatred of the father, un der the show of compassion for On the discovery of her situation, the child; but the result was the the merchant at once turned her same to Ellis; he was a ruined out of doors, as the destroyer of all man. His ostentatious charities, which had been so much praised one of to his his dearest expectations; and bade her starve or live, as she could best settle the matter with the in the days of his success, were now considered in their true light, world: nor could any after argu and had not procured a single ments of his friends, in the least friend to pity or assist him in his affect his resolution; he was deaf difficulties. to all remonstrance, whether of justice, or humanity. But the wrath of heaven, which had first smitten the guilty child, was not slow in punishing the heartless parent, who had arrogated to himself the office of vengeance, and executed it with more of passion than of equity. In his eagerness to amass a fortune, the merchant overstepped the bounds of prudent speculation. The first great loss stimulated to a second adventure for its retrieval; and that, miscarrying, in turn brought with it a further hazard, to fail like those before it; till the proud and wealthy Ellis found himself a destitute bankrupt, pursued and crushed by the vindictive spirit of disappointed creditors, who pleaded his cruelty in excuse for theirs. You showed no mercy to your own child, how then can you expect it from me, a stranger?" -was the answer of one to whom So complete had been the fai lure, and so rigid his creditors, that a few weeks found him possessed of a few pounds only, whose word had once been good for thousands. In this dilemma he quitted his native town, which for the last month he had inhabited out of mere pride, and after a long course of suffering, became the guardian of a light-house, on one of the wildest parts of the English coast. A very short residence in this sad abode, made him a weaker, though not a better man; he grew, not less selfish, but more timid, more impressed with the actual and near presence of a Creator, and he began to feel that there was not only an after, but a present, vengeance. Nor is this to be wondered at; loneliness brings the mind more immediately in contact with the works of the Creator, and from them with the Creator himself. No man of any |