1828.] The Witch. 391 



committed, or even contemplated, by any but a murderer, is a solecism 

 in the dramatic morals of the day. In short, those characters which act 

 from mixed motives which are made up of a " mingled yarn, good and 

 ill" are not for our money. We know better. And, accordingly, our 

 dramatists know better than to offer such characters to our notice. It 

 was not so with the play- writers and play-goers of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury : the one could conceive and depict, and the other could recognize 

 and sympathize with, whatever formed part of our common nature 

 whether of good, or evil, or of the two inextricably linked and blended 

 together. And the consequence is, that we owe to that age, for our 

 mingled delight and instruction, a body of poetic truth and beauty 

 beautiful in every case where true which no other age of the world 

 ever produced, either before or since, and which (it must be confessed) 

 no other age is likely generally or justly to appreciate. 



Our limits forbid us to say more at present on the use which Shaks- 

 peare has made of the witch portion of this play ; but the subject is one 

 of so much interest and curiosity, that we may perhaps take a future 

 occasion of devoting a short paper to it alone. 



UMIVE11SITY OF BONN. 

 QFROM AN OXONIAN.]] 



MY DEAR A. : Botm, August 1827- 



MY silence hitherto has probably induced you to think that my expe- 

 rience has confirmed your doubts of the advantages that would attend 

 my passing the long vacation 011 the banks of the Rhine, in preference 

 to some quiet spot in Wales or the Isle of Wight. You may, however, 

 forthwith undeceive yourself; for the short time I have been here has at 

 once satisfied me that I have as much leisure for fagging as the most - 

 tranquil village in England could secure, and has given me a foretaste of 

 the pleasures attending a diligent inquiry de omnibus rebus et quibusdam 

 aliis. 



My present quarters are at the Star at Bonn, where I have arrived by 

 so quick a process of locomotion, as to leave little space for notes by the 

 way. This I shall make amends for on my return ; and, for the present, 

 leaving the Netherlands, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Cologne to another oppor- 

 tunity, I shall proceed to give you some account of Bonn my meta 

 viarum. 



The facilities of travelling are really too tempting to a restless spirit ; 

 you will hardly believe me when I say that I arrived here to a late 

 dinner on the fourth day after my departure from London (a distance 

 of nearly 370 miles), and that without the slightest fatigue, having had 

 my regular sleep each night- The first day lands you at Ostend, 140 

 miles ; the second takes you by canal to Bruges and Ghent, there trans- 



