took the trouble to imagine and arrange a plan. At least he displays in ít much fire, raciness and mirth; he approaches to the happy prosaism of Moliere, in painting in expressive colors the manners, the habits, and the reality of life.

No personage of the tragedies of Shakspeare is more admired in England, or is more tragic than that of Shylock in the comedy of the Merchant of Venice.' The inextinguishable thirst of gold, greedy and base cruelty, the bitterness of a hatred ulcerated by contempt, are there traced with an incomparable energy; and one of those female characters so graceful under the pen of Shakspeare, throws, in this same work, in the midst of a romantic intrigue, the charm of passion. The comedies of Shakspeare have no moral aim: they amuse the imagination, they excite the curiosity, they divert, they astonish; but they are not lessons of manners more or less concealed. Some among them can be compared with the Amphytrion of Moliere; they often have its grace and free poetic turn. In this class of composition must be placed the Mid-summer Night Dream, an unequal, but charming piece, where magic furnishes to the poet a pleasant and gay marvel.

Shakspeare, who notwithstanding his originality, has taken every where plots and forms, imitates also the Italian pastoral of the sixteenth century; and he has represented agreeably those ideal shepherds which Tasso's Aminta had brought into fashion. His piece entitled As You Like It,' is full of charming verses, and light and graceful descriptions. Moliere in his 'Princess d'Elide' gives an idea of this mixture of passions without truth, and of rural pictures without nature. It is a false kind of writing (genre) agreeably treated by a man of genius. Howsoever that may be, these productions so diversified, these efforts of imagination so various, testify the richness of the genius of Shakspeare. It bursts forth no less in that multitude of sentiments, ideas, views, and observations of all kinds, which fill indiscriminately all his works, which flow from his pen, and which can be extracted from even the least happy of his compositions.

Selections of the thoughts of Shakspeare have been made, and they are cited on all occasions, and under all forms; and a man who has the sentiment of letters, cannot open him without finding a thousand things which he cannot forget. In the midst of this excess of strength, this immoderate expression which he often gives to characters, come forth touches of nature which make his faults forgotten. Let us not be astonished, that with a reflecting and ingenious nation his works should be as the basis of literature. Shakspeare is the Homer of the English-he began every thing with them. His picturesque and energetic diction, his language enriched with bold thoughts and images, was the treasure from whence drew the elegant writers of the age of Queen Anne. His strong and familiar pictures, his energy often trivial, his excessive and untrained imagination remain the character and the ambition of English literature. Notwithstanding new views and philosophy, the change of manners and the progress of knowledge, Shakspeare subsists in the midst of the literature of his country; he animates and sustains it, as in this same England, the old laws, and the ancient forms, sustain and vivify modern society. When originality had diminished, they returned but with more admiration to this old model so rich and so bold. The influence of his examples, or perhaps a natural

analogy with some of the traits of his genius is visible in the most celebra ted writers of England, and among them, he, who has the privilege of amusing all Europe, Sir Walter Scott, although he has observed, with the fidelity of an antiquary, those differences of manners and customs which Shakspeare often confounded, must be ranked in his school; he is penetrated with his genius, he has borrowed and has by nature something of his pleasantry; he sometimes equals his dialogue; finally, and this is the most beautiful point of the resemblance, he has more than one relation with Shakspeare in the great art of creating, giving life to, and making known characters by the smallest details, and to place, so to speak, more beings in the world, with a sign which is not effaced, and which their name alone recalls to memory.

Such is the immortal character which aggrandized for two centuries the continually growing fame of Shakspeare. Shut up for a long time in his country, it has been for half a century an object of emulation for foreigners; but in this view his influence has less power and brilliance. Copied by system, or timidly corrected, it is good for nothing for imitators. When he is reproduced with an affectation of barbarous irregularity, when his disorder is laboriously imitated by that experimental literature of Germany, which has successively tried all kinds of writing, and sometimes attempted barbarism as the last calculation, it inspires productions too often cold and incongruous, where the tone of our age belies the ficti tious rudeness of the poet.

When even in the hands of the energetic Ducis, he is reduced to our classic proportions and imprisoned in the fetters of our theatre, he loses with the freedom of his gait whatever is in him great or unexpected for the imagination. The monstrous characters which he invents have no longer room to move. His terrible action, his wide developments of pas sion cannot be confined in the limits of rules. He has no longer his pride, his daring; his head is fastened with the innumerable threads of Gulliver. Swathe not the giant; leave him to his bold bounds, his savage liberty. Prune not this shooting and vigorous tree, thin not its dark and thick branches to square its naked trunk on the uniform model of the gardens of Versailles.

Shakspeare belongs to the English, and theirs he must remain. This poetry is not destined like that of the Greeks, to present to other nations a model of the most beautiful forms of the imagination; it offers not that ideal beauty which the Greeks had carried into the works of thought as into the drawing arts. Shakspeare seems then destined to enjoy a less universal fame; but the fortune and genius of his countrymen have extended the sphere of his immortality. The English language is spoken in the peninsula of India, and in all that half of the new world which must inherit from Europe. The numerous people of the United States have no other national theatre than the pieces of Shakspeare. They engage at a great expense, some celebrated English actor, to come from beyond the seas, to represent to the inhabitants of New-York, these dramas of the old English poet, which must have a powerful effect on a free people; they excite still more enthusiasm and rapture than in the theatres of London. The democratic good sense of these men, so industrions and so occupied,

seizes with ardor the strong thoughts, and the profound sentences with which Shakspeare abounds; his gigantic images please minds accustomed to the most magnificent spectacles of nature, and to the immensity of the forests and rivers of the New World. His unequal rudeness, his coarse oddities, do not shock a society which is formed of such different elements, which knows neither aristocracy nor court, and which has rather the calculation and the arms of civilization than its politeness and elegance.

Here, as in his native land, Shakspeare is the most popular of writers; he is perhaps the only poet, some of whose verses occasionally mingle in the simple eloquence and the grave discourses of the American Senate. It is above all through him, that these people, so skilful in the material enjoyments of society, scem to communicate with that noble enjoyment of letters which they neglect, and of which they know little; and when the genius of the arts shall awake in these countries, of so poetic an aspect, but where liberty seems yet to have inspired only commerce, industry and the practical sciences of life, we may believe that the authority of Shakspeare and the enthusiasm of his example, will reign over this new literature. Thus this comedian of the age of Elizabeth, this author reputed so uncultivated, who did not collect his works himself, rapidly composed for obscure and rude theatres, will be the head and model of a poetical school, speaking the language spread over the most flourishing half of a new universe.

MR. VILLEMAIN.

We offer to our readers the translation of another article taken from Villemain's Melanges historiques et litteraires,' 3 vol. 8vo. Paris, 1827. They are, as the title purports, miscellaneous articles on literary, philosophical and historical subjects, written and published at different periods, and finally collected in 3 volumes 8vo. Mr. Villemain is, besides, the author of an history of Oliver Cromwell; an history of Pope Gregory VII [Hildebrand;] of a beautiful translation of Cicero's 'de Republica,' &c. and has been for several years past lecturing on literature at the Sorbonne in Paris, in the spacious halls of which he and his celebrated colleagues, Cousin, Guizot, &c. (as professors of history, philosophy, &c.) are continually drawing large audiences. Of Mr. Villemain's lectures it is especially literally true, that it is necessary to come half an hour before the commencement to find a seat or stand, and that, when the professor has began to speak, even the open avenues to the hall are crowded with persons who cannot see him, but who are still reached by the sound of his clear voice. This throng is not a passing fashion, for Mr. V. has been lecturing with equal success for a considerable number of years; it is entirely voluntary, the doors being thrown open, neither pay nor ticket being required for admission.

These lectures are not intended to form pupils for a particular profesFion, but are devoted to the educated and literary public at large, which

is easily perceived from the mixture of nations and professions, of ranks and dresses in these assemblies. And although the professorship is instituted under the title of French eloquence,' there is no jealous superintendence which prevents the professor from connecting with, and submitting to an extensive and original plan, the proposed matter of his lectures. Mr. V. has accordingly treated, varying every year, of general French literature during particular periods, drawing illustrations from the history of his and other countries, vindicating in a philosophical spirit Mme. de Stael's saying, that literature is the expression of society;' but not seldom obliged to yield, by a well timed silence on inviting topics, by a provident but generally understood forbearance, to the watching suspicions of a tyrannical ministry.

Literature has been of late in France so intimately connected with politics, has been so decidedly acted upon by events of a public nature, that it may not be improper to introduce here brief remarks on the state of public opinion, and the situation of the government of that country, during the last ten years. These remarks will find their place in the short account which we intend to give of Mr. V's literary life; for the occurrences to which we allude, have exercised no inconsiderable influence on the writings of Mr. V. and many other French authors of distinction.

Having received in 1812, when still very young, the prize of eloquence proposed by the French Academy, which was rapidly followed by several others, he was sometime afterwards appointed to the professorship of French eloquence. He was one of the not numerous early geniuses, who fulfil the hasty expectations conceived of them. His not numerous but excellent productions, his well known and well appreciated talents, his growing popularity with the best society, and principally with the most. promising young men, called the attention on him, and he was promoted to the offices of Directeur de la librairie' and 'maitre des Requetes." But Mr. V. never ceased his lectures, deeming, with many of the most distinguished men in French science and literature, that the functions of higher instruction are disparaging to no rank in life. He thought the free and unequivocal applause of an enlightened audience, re-echoed by the reading world, and won in honorable competition with the first minds of his age and country, more gratifying to his feelings, than the soon forgotten, although well paid approbation of the minister, earned in occupations in which it is so easy to be outwitted by men trained all their life in habits of dull drudgery.

About 8 or 9 years ago, when Villele was placed at the head of the French ministry-a ministry almost of his own creation-Messrs. Cousin and Guizot, the first professor of philosophy, the second of modern history, at the same institution with Mr. Villemain, lost their professorships and other offices which they held under government. Their opinions, free and generous, although tempered by an uncompromising philosophy, had given

*The Direction de la librairie' is the department under the ministry of the Interior, (the Home Department) which superintends the importation, exporta" tion, and publication of books, prints, &c. and where two copies, [a few years since five,] of every work published must be deposited.

umbrage to a ministry which, in the intoxication of the power that extraordinary circumstances had thrown into their feeble hands, thought it possible to recall into life old opinions of past times, not less gone and dead forever than the men who held them.

Under this ministry Mr. Villemain either lost or resigned-we do not know which his office as 'Directeur de la librairie,' retaining that of 'maitre des Requetes' and his professorship. Personally connected with many individnals of influence and power, he had besides the great advantage, to be less imperiously than the philosopher or the historian, called upon by his subject, to state, prove, and vindicate opinions, which would have implied a condemnation of the pernicious course taken by the ministry, a condemnation, indirect, but the more authoritative and impressive, as it would have erected, without comment on, but in view of the day, a standard for the conduct of individuals and governments, drawn from the experience of past times and the investigations of human nature-showing what ought to be from what had been; and leaving the present to be judged by the inevitable comparisons and unfailing judgments of every hearer.

Mr. Villemain traversed the epoch of Villele's ministry in a state of observation, never trusting and never trusted; not very willing to attack and especially not to attack uselessly; sparing his blows for an opportunity when they might tell; never stooping to feign sentiments which he did not harbor, yet never exposing himself; reserved, still contriving to have his sentiments known by the public; remaining apparently on tolerable terms with the ministry, and still introducing here and there a passing remark, a word, 'un rien' unexceptionable or at least easily defended, it would seem, but eagerly understood and applauded by his audience. No one ever knew better to be silent a propos,' and he brought about with infinite taste, that he could dare what in no one else would have been tolerated.

It cannot be denied, that the stern self-sacrificing conduct of his colleagues commands higher esteem than his, as we honor the soldier who fell, more than him, who, even honorably, saved himself for future usefulness. But if Mr. Villemain contrived to remain in office, he has on the other hand by the continuance of his lectures contributed most effectually and beneficially to a now accomplished revolution of taste, the great and pros perous influence of which on political questions and international feelings is perhaps not every where sufficiently appreciated. Moreover, if the wellwishers of generous principles must desire, to see men in influential stations whose character is tried and known, it may be presumed that in all probability his somewhat cautious and reserved conduct has opened to him the road to important places under the government. For it seems to be a sentiment entailed upon men in power, that they seldom have a great personal liking for or desire to promote those who most zealously, earnestly, and clamorously labored to bring them or at least their party into power. New ministers feel for such men a kind of onerous gratitude, of diffidence mingled with jealousy, well knowing that they can expect their support so long only, as they remain faithfully espoused to a cause. beg to be understood, as speaking particularly of the constitutional governments of Europe, where the executive department remains unaffected by

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