broodings were the utterances Mr. Arnold, in his poem of The Buried Life,' calls "the hidden self," -that second, subjective life which every man lives apart and with himself alone, which Plato calls "the soul itself by itself." Certainly in his objective life Hamlet was not like Shakspeare, nor Shakspeare Hamlet.

What we have said of Shakspeare is true also of every great poet. He is not only a creator, but an interpreter. Therefore the poet and the historian. ought to be studied together. What ancient historians have given us such glimpses into the actual life of their times as the Greek and Latin poets-Homer, Aristophanes, Theocritus, and the great tragic poets among the former; Horace, Virgil, Ovid, and Lucretius among the latter? Through their pages the past is alive again, and we are introduced to the Senate Chamber, the Law Courts, the bustling, active life of the camp, the streets, the markets, and the pastoral life of the country, with the religion, the philosophy, and the habits of society as they were. Had it not been for these poets we should have known comparatively little of the real life of these great nations. Look again at the period of Chaucer. What chronicler or historian has left us such vivid delineations of the life of these times as appear in The Canterbury Tales'? We are able, as it were, to shake hands and to make personal acquaintance with our ancestors across more than five centuries of time. Thus poetry brings us into companionship with the mighty dead, who can never die; those "sceptred sovereigns who still rule our spirits from their urns."

In conclusion it may not be inopportune to quote the last words from one of the last plays our great dramatist is supposed to have written-the epilogue of The Tempest,' in which it has been suggested that Shakspeare himself typified his own retirement from the theatre on returning to his native town. When the enchanter Prospero abandons his "so potent art," breaks his staff, drowns his book, and dismisses his Ariel spirits, on going back to his dukedom, he prays relief from the burden of his soul, and craves forgiveness and mercy in these significant lines:

"Now my charms are all o'erthrown,

And what strength I have's mine own,-
Which is most faint.

Nothing can be added to the meaning of these lines. Were they a presentiment of Shakspeare's farewell to the stage with its enchantments? We can only say in the last spoken words of Hamlet, The rest is silence."

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VOL. XXIV.

HUNGARIAN LITERATURE IN RELATION TO THE HISTORY OF THE MAGYARS.

BY MRS. CH. ARTHUR GINEVER (née ILONA DE GYÖRY).

[Read June 16th, 1903.]

WHEN a people, scarcely as yet possessing any past and living only in the hopes of a future, turns its rapturous gaze towards this mysterious future whereto the people hopes to be led by an unknown hand, it is then that the imagination creates the people's religion. When increasing strength and self-knowledge enable the people to bear responsibility, when their looks become steady enough to be directed straight towards the present, the actual world around them, it is then that men keenly watch the scales where crime and virtue are weighed; and the result of their thinking is the people's legislation, together very often with its philosophy.

When

their look turns backwards, to see the shadows of the past, to find explanation of the present world and the justification of future hopes, their investigations furnish the history of the nation.

But when the people's spirit rises high enough to survey the traditions of the past, the truth of the present, and the aspirations of the future; when its soul unites in itself all that men believe about the past, love in the present, and hope from the future; it gives birth to the poetry of that people.

VOL. XXIV.

18

And now that I am here to speak about the literature of a thousand years, I feel that the task is like that of one who has to draw the picture of a whole vast country, with all its natural phenomena, on a small scale map. When the work is ready, it is with disappointment that he sees how the glowing colours of the scenery have faded to a neutral tint, how the heights have become flat and the depths shallow.

Yes; but the map is colourless, mute, and dead to those only that cannot interpret it by means of their knowledge, nor call it to life by their imagination. If the light of knowledge and the warmth of feeling can vivify a picture, then can men of letters more than all others give life and meaning to a bare outline. Therefore I trust that here, in this circle, if my hand but points to such a sketch and shows there is a forest, a majestic, dark, waving forest, your heart and mind will perceive and understand its rustling; if I show you the tiny mark of a mountain rivulet, your imagination reveals to you that it means a noble stream of youthful purity and youthful, impetuous strength. The thoughtless man says, after having seen the map of a foreign country, "It showed me all I need to know about that region." The thinker says, "It showed me how much I OUGHT to know about it." To the former the sight of the map means the end of the interest and investigation; to the latter it is but the beginning

of it.

It

It is far away in space and far back in time that we must fly to see the first traces of our poetry. would require an eagle's wings-the wings of the