clusion that he possessed, above all other men, so complete a mastery over the tendency to colour general representations of life and character with personal views and circumstances, that he invariably went out of himself,-that he saw nothing through his own individual feelings,-and that thus none of his portraits are alike, because none are personifications of his own nature-his own life-his own self-consciousness. Mr. Hallam, whose general views of Shakspere are formed in the spirit of the most enlarged criticism, is of a different opinion :"There seems to have been a period of Shakspeare's life when his heart was ill at ease and ill content with the world or his own conscience. The memory of hours mis-spent, the pang of affection misplaced or unrequited, the experience of man's worser nature, which intercourse with ill-chosen associates, by chance or circumstances, peculiarly teaches;-these, as they sank down into the depths of his great mind, seem not only to have inspired into it the conception of Lear' and 'Timon,' but that of one primary character, the censurer of mankind. This type is first seen in the philosophic melancholy of Jaques, gazing with an undiminished serenity, and with a gaiety of fancy, though not of manners, on the follies of the world. assumes a graver cast in the exiled Duke of the same play." Mr. Hallam then notices the like type in 'Measure for Measure' and the altered' Hamlet,' as well as in Lear' and 'Timon;' and adds, "In the later plays of Shakspeare, especially in 'Macbeth' and the Tempest,' much of moral speculation will be found, but he has never returned to this type of character in the personages. Without entering into a general examination of Mr. Hallam's theory, which evidently includes a very wide range of discussion, we must venture to think that the type of character first seen in Jaques, and presenting a graver cast in

It

6

the exiled Duke, is so modified by the whole conduct of the action of this comedy, by its opposite characterisation, and by its prevailing tone of reflection, that it offers not the slightest evidence of having been produced at a period of the poet's life "when his heart was ill at ease and ill content with the world or his own conscience." As You Like It,' the altered 'Hamlet,' 'Timon,'' Lear,' Measure for Measure,' belong, as we think (of the dates of some there can be no doubt), to the first two or three years of the seventeenth century. To this period the Sonnets have by some been supposed to belong. The tone of many of those "magnificent lyrics" has led, as it appears to us, to the belief that "his heart was ill at ease, and ill content with the world or his own conscience." But it is impossible to collect the same opinion from the examination, apart from the Sonnets, of any drama or group of dramas of this period. Twelfth Night' belongs to it, and so does Othello.' All that is misanthropical in that noble tragedy is in common with the fiendish wickedness of Iago; "Twelfth Night' is overflowing with a spirit of enjoyment, and is full of the truest and most beautiful humanities.

Shakspere at this period, the last year or two of the sixteenth century, and the opening years of the seventeenth, was for the most part in London. In 1598 we find his townsman, Richard Quiney, writing him a letter, requesting the loan of thirty pounds. Mr. Alderman Sturley, with reference to some public business of that period, not only says in a letter that "our countryman, Mr. William Shakspere, would procure us money," but speaks "of the friends he can make." Such notices are decisive as to the position Shakspere then held in the estimation of the world. In 1601 his father died; and his burial is thus registered at Stratford :—

Septemb. I m3 Jozanos Seaks poam

He appears then to have had three brothers living,-Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund. Gilbert, next to himself, resided at Stratford, and probably managed William's affairs there while he was in London; for in 1602, when the prosperous poet bought a considerable quantity of land near Stratford, of William and John Combe (107 acres), the counterpart of the conveyance (which we have seen) contains an acknowledgment of possession being given to Gilbert Shakspere, to the use of William. It is probable that Gilbert died before William; for no mention is made of him in the poet's will. The younger son of the family, Edmund, born in 1580, followed the fortunes of his illustrious brother. It was probably intended that he should succeed him in his proprietorship of the theatres; but the register of the burials of St. Mary Overies, in Southwark, closes his history in 1607: "Edmund Shakspere, player, in the church." Richard Shakspere died in 1613.

In 1603 James I. ascended the throne of England. Lord Southampton, who had so imprudently participated in the conspiracy of Essex, was a favourite of the new sovereign; and one almost of the first acts of the reign was the grant of a patent to the proprietors of the Blackfriars and Globe Theatres. In this patent the name of Shakspere stands the second. The names mentioned being "Lawrence Fletcher, William Shakspeare, Richard Burbage, Augustine Phillips, John Hemmings, Henry Condell, William Sly, Robert Armyn, Richard Cowley."

It would appear that at this period Shakspere was desirous of retiring from the more laborious duties of his profession as an actor. He desired to be appointed, there is little doubt, to the office of Master of the Queen's Revels. Daniel, a brotherpoet, was appointed; and in a letter to the Lord Keeper, Sir

• Literature of Europe,' vol. iii.

Thomas Egerton,* he thus speaks of one of the competitors for the office:" It seemeth to my humble judgment that one who is the author of plays now daily presented on the public stages of London, and the possessor of no small gains, and moreover himself an actor in the King's company of comedians, could not with reason pretend to be master of the Queen's Majesty's revels, forasmuch as he would sometimes be asked to approve and allow of his own writings."

But Shakspere continued to hold his property in the theatre. In 1608 the Corporation of London again attempted to interfere with the actors of the Blackfriars; and there being little chance of ejecting them despotically, a negotiation was set on foot for the purchase of their property. A document found by Mr. Collier amongst the Egerton papers at once determines Shakspere's position in regard to his theatrical proprietorship. It is a valuation, containing the following item :"Item. W. Shakespeare asketh for the wardrobe and properties of the same playhouse 500, and for his four shares, the same as his fellows Burbidge and Fletcher, viz., 9331. 6s. Ed.. 1433 6 8"

With this document was found another-unquestionably the most interesting paper ever published relating to Shakspere: it is a letter from Lord Southampton to Lord Ellesmere, the Lord Chancellor; and it contains the following passage :

"These bearers are two of the chief of the company; one of them by name Richard Burbidge, who humbly sueth for your Lordship's kind help, for that he is a man famous as our English Roscius, one who fitteth the action to the word and the word to the action most admirably. By the exercise of his quality, industry, and good behaviour, he hath become

• Collier, 'New Facts,' p. 48.

possessed of the Black Friars playhouse, which hath been employed for plays since it was built by his father, now near fifty years ago. The other is a man no whit less deserving favour, and my especial friend, till of late an actor of good account in the company, now a sharer in the same, and writer of some of our best English plays, which, as your Lordship knoweth, were most singularly liked of Queen Elizabeth, when the company was called upon to perform before her Majesty at court, at Christmas and Shrovetide. His most gracious Majesty King James also, since his coming to the crown, hath extended his royal favour to the company in divers ways and at sundry times. This other hath to name William Shakespeare, and they are both of one county, and indeed almost of one town: both are right famous in their qualities, though it longeth not to your Lordship's gravity and wisdom to resort unto the places where they are wont to delight the public ear. Their trust and suit now is, not to be molested in their way of life whereby they maintain themselves and their wives and families (being both married and of good reputation), as well as the widows and orphans of some of their dead fellows."

The mode in which Southampton speaks of Shakspere is most noble; it is almost more than could have been expected from a courtier addressing a minister of state. Whatever Southampton might feel towards Shakspere in private, it was something like a breaking down of aristocratic distinctions thus to write of a "poor player:"-" The other is a man no whit less deserving favour, and MY ESPECIAL FRIEND." Who can doubt the estimation in which Shakspere must have been held by all men when his personal character, as well as his surpassing genius, had thus broken down the observance of the distinctions which in those days were most rigidly clung to? We learn from this letter that in 1608 Shakspere had ceased to be an actor; but he was still a sharer in the company.

We may now suppose that the great poet, thus honoured and esteemed, had retired to Stratford, retaining a property in the theatre-regularly writing for it. There is an opinion that he ceased to act after 1603. In that year his name is found amongst the performers of one of Ben Jonson's plays. But the years from 1604 to his death, in the April of 1616, were not idly spent. He was a practical farmer, we have little doubt. In 1605 he bought a moiety of the tithes of Stratford, which he would then probably collect in kind. He occupied the best house of the place; he had there his "curious knotted garden" to amuse him; and his orchard had many a pippin of his "own graffing." James I. recommended the cultivation of mulberry-trees in England; and who has not heard of Shakspere's mulberry-tree? Vulgar tradition at this time represents him as writing a bitter epitaph upon his friend and neighbour John Combe, as he had satirized Sir Thomas Lucy. Mr. De Quincey ably vindicates Shakspere from these calumnies. It is by no means certain that "Justice Shallow" was ever intended for the possessor of Charlecote: and the four lines upon Combe (which Aubrey quotes, see p. 25) were, according to

Mr. De Quincey, "written and printed before Shakspere was born." He was doing something better. To the first half of the period between 1604 and his death may be assigned'Lear,' Macbeth,' Cymbeline,' The Winter's Tale,' and 'The Tempest.' The very recital of the names of these glorious works, associated as they are with that quiet country town, its beautiful Avon, its meadows, and its woodlands, is enough to make Stratford a name dear and venerable in every age. But there are others to be added to the wondrous list; and these probably belong to the latter half of the period :-'Troilus and Cressida,' Henry VIII.,' 'Coriolanus,' Julius Cæsar,'' Antony and Cleopatra.' The direction of Shakspere's mind to Roman subjects, in his closing period, and the marvellous accuracy, the real substantial learning, with which he has treated them, would lead us to believe that he had renewed the studies of his boyhood in the last years of his retirement. Alfieri learned Greek after he was fifty. It is our opinion that Shak spere continued to write till he was removed by death; and that the Roman plays were the beginning of a series. Who will finish that series?

In 1607 Susanna, the eldest daughter of Shakspere, married a physician resident at Stratford-a man of high professional eminence-Dr. Hall. In 1608 his grand-daughter Elizabeth was born. To this child he bequeathed a sum of money, and all his plate, "except my broad silver and gilt bowl." Shakspere was a grandfather at 43. In 1608 his mother died-the mother, doubtless, of his ardent love. There is a curious record of Shakspere's later years, which was recently discovered in the library of the Medical Society of London, contained in the "Diary of the Rev. John Ward, Vicar of Stratford-uponAvon." The Diary extends from 1618 to 1679; and it contains the following very characteristic entry :

"I have heard that Mr. Shakspear was a natural wit, without any art at all; he frequented the plays all his younger time, but in his elder days lived at Stratford, and supplied the stage with two plays every year: and for it had an allowance so large, that he spent at the rate of 10007. a-year, as I have heard.

Shakspeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting; and it seems drank too hard, for Shakspeare died of a fever there contracted."

Shakspere's annual expenditure, and the merry meeting, and the hard drinking, are probably exaggerations. They, however, show that our opinion that Shakspere continued to write for the stage after he had ceased to be an actor has some foundation; and that his residence in comfort and affluence at Stratford did not necessarily imply an abandonment of all his former pursuits. Henry VIII.,' upon every rational construction of evidence, was produced at the Globe Theatre in 1613, and was then a new play.

We approach the end. Shakspere, according to the register of Stratford, was buried on the 25th of April, 1616:

April 25 mitt Grak sporne yout

He survived the marriage of his daughter Judith to Thomas Quiney only two months, and he made his will, probably, upon the occasion of that marriage. It is dated the 25th of March, but in the document February was first written, and afterwards struck out. By this will, which is long, he gives his real estates to his eldest daughter.

In a short paper published in 'The Pictorial Edition of Shakspere in the beginning of this year, we endeavoured to vindicate Shakspere from a calumny which, through the long continuance of a misapprehension, has constantly presented itself to the thoughts even of those who were most anxious to believe that the poet of universal benevolence—the gentlest,

the most tolerant spirit that ever came to win men to charity and love by other than the lessons of inspiration-was incapable of a deliberate act of cruelty and contempt towards the wife of his bosom.

According to the received interpretation of his will, Shakspere treats his wife with neglect and "bitter sarcasm," for which estranged affectious would have been no warranty; and consigns her, with a solemn avowal of contempt and hatred, to a miserable dependence, not even recommended or implied, upon the bounty of their common children. According to the dictum of Malone, who first dragged this offensive bequest into notice Encyclopædia Britannica.

LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

BY ANDRÉ VIEUSSEUX.

§ I. TO THE PEACE OF AMIENS.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE was born at Ajaccio in the island of Corsica, on the 15th of August, 1769. He was the second son (his brother Joseph being the eldest) of Carlo Bonaparte and of Letizia Ramolini, both natives of Corsica. In his baptismal register, which is in the parish books, his name is written Bonaparte, but his father generally signed himself Buonaparte, a mode of writing which seems more accordant with Italian orthoepy, although there are other Italian names in which the first component part is written and pronounced bona, as for instance, Bonaventura, Bonaccorsi, &c., besides common nouns, similarly compounded, such as bonarietà, bonaccia, &c. This appears in itself a question of little moment, but it has been made the subject of much controversy, to which a sort of national importance has been given, as if the dropping of the u had been done for the purpose of Frenchifying the name. (Louis Bonaparte's Réponse à Sir Walter Scott.) Bonaparte being a family name, the correctness of the spelling must depend upon custom, and we find that Napoleon after he became general of the army of Italy always signed his name without the u, probably, as Bourienne observes, because it was a shorter way of signing, and probably also because it was better adapted to French pronunciation; it corresponded likewise to the common way of speaking of most Italians, who, with the exception of the Tuscans, pronounce in familiar conversation bono' instead of 'buono.' Napoleon's name first became known to the world as Bonaparte, and as such it is registered in his proclamations, despatches, and other documents.

1784, has the following remarks on young Napoleon :-' Distinguished in mathematical studies, tolerably versed in history and geography, much behind in his Latin and in belles lettres, and other accomplishments; of regular habits, studious and well behaved, and enjoying excellent health.' (Bourienne's Memoirs.) Much has been said of young Napoleon's taciturnity and moroseness while at school. Bourienne, who was his schoolfellow, states the facts very simply. Napoleon was a stranger, for the French considered the Corsicans as such; he spoke his own dialect, until he learnt French at the school; he had no connexions in France; he was comparatively poor, and yet proud-minded, as Corsicans generally are; the other boys, more fortunate or more lively in their disposition, teazed him and taunted him, and therefore he kept himself distant and was often alone. But that he was susceptible of social and friendly feelings towards those who showed him sympathy, his intimacy with Bourienne sufficiently proves.

There was nothing extraordinary in young Napoleon's school life; he was a clever, steady, studious lad, and nothing more. The school of Brienne was under the direction of the monks of the order of St. Francis de Paula, called Minimi,' and Bourienne speaks rather indifferently of their learning and system of education, though the teacher of mathematics seems to have been a favourable exception. Bourienne also states that Napoleon had made more proficiency in history than the report above mentioned gives him credit for: his favourite authors were Cæsar, Plutarch, and Arrian; the last two he probably read in Latin, or perhaps French translations, for he does not appear to have studied Greek.

Napoleon's family was originally from Tuscany, but had been settled in Corsica for several generations. There is a comedy written by one of his ancestors, Niccolò Buonaparte of San Miniato, citizen of Florence, styled 'La Vedova,' Florence, 1568 and 1592. There is likewise a narrative of the pillage of Rome under Charles V., written by a Jacopo Buonaparte, 'Ragguaglio Storico del Sacco di Roma dell'anno 1527,' Cologne, 1736. Charles, Napoleon's father, was educated at Pisa for the profession of the law. Before the birth of Napoleon he had served under Paoli in the defence of his country against the French, to whom the Genoese had basely sold the island. The entire submission of Corsica to France took place in June, 1769, about two months before Napoleon's birth, who therefore was born a subject of France. In the following September, when Count Marbœuf, the French commissioner, convoked by the king's letters patent the States of Corsica, consisting of three orders, nobility, clergy, and commons, the family of Bonaparte, having shown their titles, was registered among the nobility; and Charles, some years after, repaired to Paris as member of a deputation of his order to Louis XVI. He was soon after appointed assessor to the judicial court of Ajaccio. He was then in straitened circumstances, as he had spent most of his little property in a speculation of some salterns, after having previously lost a suit against the Jesuits about an inheritance which he claimed. Through Count Marbœuf's interest he obtained the admission of his son Napoleon to the military school of Brienne as a king's❘tember, 1785, he left the school, and received his commission as

pensioner. Napoleon left Corsica for Brienne, when he was in his tenth year, in April, 1779. At Brienne, where he passed five years and a half, he made great progress in mathematics, but showed less disposition for literature and the study of languages. Pichegru was for a time his monitor in the class of mathematics. The annual report made to the king by M. de Keralio, inspector-general of the military schools of France, in

No. 3.

Napoleon left Brienne in October, 1784: some say in 1783, but Bourienne is positive as to the date, 17th October, 1784, after Napoleon had been five years and six months at Brienne,' and he accompanied him part of the way to Paris, with four of his companions, to proceed to the military school there, to continue his course of studies, until he had attained the age for entering the army. The Paris school, and the students' manner of living, were on an expensive footing, which shocked young Napoleon, who wrote to Father Berton, his superior at Brienne, a long letter, in which he forcibly exposed the error of such a system of education: luxury and comforts, he said, were a bad preparation for the hardships attendant on the military profession. Bourienne gives a copy of this remarkable letter. In the regulations which he afterwards drew up for his military school at Fontainebleau, Napoleon followed the principles he had thus early manifested. Napoleon's spirit of observation, and his active and inquisitive character, would appear to have attracted the attention of the superiors of the Paris school, who hastened the epoch of his examination, as if anxious to get rid of a troublesome guest. He was likewise remarked for a wild energy and strange amplifications in his style of expressing himself when excited, a peculiarity which distinguished many of his subsequent speeches and proclamations. In Sep

sub-lieutenant in the regiment of artillery de la Fère, and was soon after promoted to a first lieutenancy in the artillery regiment of Grenoble, stationed at Valence. His father had just died at Montpellier of a scirrhus in the stomach. An old great-uncle, the Archdeacon Lucien of Ajaccio, now acted as father to the family; he was rich, and Charles had left his children poor. Napoleon's elder brother Joseph, after receiving his

[KNIGHT'S STORE OF KNOWLEDGE.]

D