AND OBSERVANCES OF SHAKSPEARE. 261 



Of all the agents which assail the body none are so widely fatal 

 as the atmosphere. The celebrated Montesquieu, who pursued the 

 inquiry of climatic influence on both the body and mind, traces the 

 peculiarities of nations to the influence of climate more than to 

 any other cause. The climate of England, from its variability, is 

 productive of the most fatal diseases. How many thousands yearly 

 are victims to consumption ! and, what is most melancholy, the 

 evil springs even in the first element of life. With regard to the 

 moral influence, we possess an advantage which does not belong to 

 the cloudless skies of the east. Our world of clouds, with its 

 thousand forms and colours, is alone in its grandeur, with all the 

 magnificence of the ocean, it presents an ever-varying landscape. 



* England, with all thy faults I love thee still ! 

 My country ! and while yet a nook is left 

 Where English minds and manners may be found 

 Shall be constrained to love thee. Though thy clime 

 Be fickle, and thy year most part deformed 



With dripping rains or wither'd frost, 

 I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies, 

 And fields without a flower, for warmer France 

 With all her vines." 



The climatic suicidical mania of the English has been hitherto pro- 

 verbial, but France, of late years, has assumed self-slaughter as an 

 accomplishment, and, like a dramatic hero, makes it a point of study 

 to " die well," If the old apothegm of Solon be correct, the 

 French are philosophers to the last : — " Dici beatus ante obitum 

 nemo debet'' We shall find that poor Claudio did not much re- 

 spect a " perpetual honour :" visited by Isabella she makes known 

 to him the condition of his pardon : — 



* Claudio. — Let me know the point. 



Isabella — O, I do fear thee, Claudio ; and I quake, 

 Lest thou a feverous life should'st entertain, 

 And six or seven winters more respect 

 Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die ? 

 The sense of death is most in apprehension ; 

 And the poor beetle, that we tread upon, 

 In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great 

 As when a giant dies. ,y 



This is physically false, but morally true. From man, in whom 

 the nervous system is most perfectly developed, down to the polypi, 

 the gradations are marked by a more and more imperfect nervous 



