592 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 



known) was lamentably deficient. With the science of phrenology 

 itself, he was undoubtedly and indisputably familiar. As for in- 

 stance, in the very play, the name of which we have had occasion to 

 mention,, we find something to this effect 



" For murder, though it hath no tongue, 

 Doth speak with most miraculous organ," 



fully, and by a bold defiance of prejudice and ignoraace, meanness of 

 spirit, presumption, arrogance, and folly, substantiating and confirming 

 the whole principle of phrenological research ; particularly the con- 

 spicuousness, and enlarged developement of the organ of destructive- 

 ness in cases of homicide, and that sort of thing, by the demonstratively 

 sanguinary caput of the usurper king. We have no hesitation in 

 stating, that this passage has hitherto been most grossly misappre- 

 hended and misread. That Hamlet had opportunities most ample, 

 to settle his mind as to the state of his uncle's cranium, cannot for a 

 moment be questioned ; and, moreover, the result of Hamlet's un- 

 wearied investigation, deserves our more especial attention, from the 

 fact of the extraordinary facility he experienced in the pursuit of his 

 enquiry, from the absence of an ordinary impediment for his 

 facinerous relative indulged in the costly comfort of a wig. We 

 think it necessary to make our opinions public upon this question ; 

 nothing can be more proper ; and considering the very eminent au- 

 thority the bump-philosophers have now discovered, for the first 

 time, in support of their system, nothing can be more just. 



Our own sconce we fear, had, up to the epoch.', of the perusal of 

 Mr. Levison's book, maintained a most unaccountable hostility to the 

 application of all phrenological rule ; in fact, it was candidly admitted, 

 by a very celebrated professor, that a more discouraging pate had 

 never been submitted to his inspection. Mr. Levison, however, has 

 effected a strange revolution in our " distracted globe." Our cranium 

 has been in a state of commotion all the morning. We had scarcely 

 began to warm in Mr. Levison's company, before a change, a vital 

 change came over us ; our senses rose at once against the Unmethodical 

 state of things ; confusion, for a time, ran wildly through the streets 

 of our mental metropolis ; the genius of phrenology has come upon 

 us ; the hitherto plain surface of our upper-story has become orna- 

 mented with sundry mysterious mole-hills. Our skull has been like 

 unto a sea in trouble, with the restless undulation of our organs, rising 

 and sinking on their passage to their appointed localities. " Change 

 sides, and down the middle," has been the order of the day. Peace 

 is now restored, and a more phrenologically-orthodox pate, we dare 

 to say, is not to be found among the factitious images in the shop of 

 Mr. De Ville himself. Our hat, however, refuses to environ our 

 temples, so changed is the size and fashion of its late occupant; our 

 tresses have been strangely cast about in the irruption. We know 

 not what our friends will say, for we are absolutely ignorant of our- 

 selves when we look in the glass. Our wife looks sulky, and likes 

 us not in such a head. She would fain give the command, " as you 

 were. M Our children run away from us ; and we have not yet con- 

 vinced them, though plentifully bribed with sweetmeats, that we are 



