618 Ectzsclis Outlines of Shakspearc. [JUNE, 



sincerity and good faith. They are the people, imagined by Hamlet, in 

 one of his merry-mad moods. They 



" Doubt that the sun is fire 

 Douht that the stars do move 

 Boubt truth to he a liar ;" 



in short, they doubt every thing, except the fact, that any body can 

 doubt the truth (to say noting of the crystal clearness) of Kant's 

 Philosophy and Goethe's Poetry ! And yet, if you were to assure 

 them that, in point of fact, you do believe in both these verities, 

 they would doubt that ! To return to our immediate subject give 

 the Germans a ghost by moonlight, and they hail it as a friend and 

 countryman come to visit them in a foreign land, and bring them 

 tidings of home ! This is the secret of Hamlet having been chosen as 

 the first subject of illustration in the present instance. Seriously, for 

 we plead guilty to a little (and only a little) banter and exaggeration in 

 the foregoing account which, however, we indulged in with the view 

 of expressing, in afciv words, that feeling which otherwise we must have 

 diffused through many. seriously, there is no people that sees so far 

 into the secret places of the world of spirits as the Germans do ; and, 

 consequently, none that draw forth and depict the beings of that world 

 with so much mingled force and (so to speak) verisimilitude. The 

 ghost, in these two plates, frcm the first act of Hamlet, is, accordingly, 

 admirable. In the first place, it is transparent like the ghosts in 

 Ossian: you can see, through it, the masonry of the ramparts on which 

 it appears. In the next place, nothing can be in a finer ghostly taste than 

 the head-gear which it wears. It is a helmet, with the " beaver up," 

 of course : but what gives the effect to it is, the wings on either side, 

 "which seem to communicate a buoyancy to the whole figure, and at the 

 same time to 



" Point with silent fingers to the skies ;" 



and also the lofty plume, which rises erect and motionless, while those 

 of the other figures are waving and playing in the night wind. There 

 is also one great heavy feather depending from the helmet, as if to cor- 

 respond with the ample cloak which trails upon the ground, seeming to 

 hold its wearer to the earth, till his ghostly errand is performed, and lie 

 can fling aside for ever those "mortal -evils/' which still obstruct his 

 .passage to a better state of being. The face of this admirable figure is 

 equally fine and appropriate with every other part of it it is not the 

 face, but the ghost of one ; and the whole produces an effect perfect in 

 its way. In the fourth plate, the introduction of the ghost is even still 

 finer. The point of time illustrated, is that where Hamlet swears the 

 officers on guard to secrecy, and where the voice alone of the ghost is 

 supposed to be made present to the senses. But in the plate, you are 

 permitted to see it, through the marble pavement of the gallery, or plat- 

 form. The lines which mark out the pavement, and those M'hich give 

 the form of the ghost, cross and intersect each other, neither obliterating, 

 or affecting the other. This is, at once, a fine stroke of imagination, and 

 a fine help to it ; but it is addressed to the spectator merely ; for the 

 persons engaged in the scene are not supposed to see anything, except 

 in their " mind's eye." These human persons, of the two foregoing 

 scenes, are among the best that we shall meet with throughout the 



