and diverting, instead of putting upon them the construction of wit or spleen, and thereby making them ridiculous or contempti ble. Hence it is that we so readily enter into a sort of fellowship with them; their foibles and follies being shown up in such a spirit of good humour that the subjects themselves would rather join with us in laughing, than be angered or hurt by the exhibition. Moreover, the high and the low are here seen moving in free and familiar intercourse, without any apparent consciousness of their respective ranks: the humours and comicalities of the play keep running and frisking in among the serious parts, to their mutual advantage; the connection between them being of a kind to be felt, not described. Thus the piece overflows with the genial, free-and-easy spirit of a merry Twelfth Night. Chance, caprice, and intrigue, it is true, are brought together in about equal portions; and their meeting, and crossing, and mutual tripping, cause a deal of perplexity and confusion, defeating the hopes of some, suspending those of others: yet here, as is often the case in actual life, from this conflict of opposites order and happiness spring up as the final result if what we call accident thwart one cherished purpose, it draws on something better; blighting a full-blown expectation now, to help the blossoming of a nobler one hereafter and it so happens in the end that all the persons but two either have what they will, or grow willing to have what comes to their hand. If the characters of this play be generally less interesting in themselves than some we meet with elsewhere in the Poet's works, the defect is pretty well made up by the felicitous grouping of them. For broad comic effect, the cluster of which Sir Toby is the centre, all of them drawn in clear yet delicate colours, -is inferior only to the unparalleled assemblage that makes rich the air of Eastcheap. Of Sir Toby himself, that most whimsical, madcap, frolicsome old toper, so full of antics and fond of sprees, with a plentiful stock of wit and an equal lack of money to keep it in motion, it is enough to say, with one of the best of Shakespearian critics, that "he certainly comes out of the same associations where the Poet saw Falstaff hold his revels ;" and that though "not Sir John, nor a fainter sketch of him, yet he has an odd sort of a family likeness to him." Sir Andrew Ague-cheek, the aspiring, lack adaisical, self-satisfied echo and sequel of Sir Toby, fitly serves the double purpose of butt and foil to the latter, at once drawing him out and setting him off. Ludicrously proud of the most petty childish irregularities, which, however, his natural fatuity keeps him from acting, and barely suffers him to affect, on this point he reminds us of that impressive imbecility, Abraham Slender; yet not in such sort as to encroach at all upon Slender's province. There can scarce be found a richer piece of diversion than Sir Toby's practice in dandling him out of his money, and paying him off with the odd hope of gaining Olivia's hand. And the funniest of it -- is, that while Sir Toby thoroughly understands him he has not himself the slightest suspicion what he is, being as confident of his own wit as others are of his want of it. Malvolio, the self-lovesick Steward, has hardly had justice done him, his bad qualities being indeed just of the kind to defeat the recognition of his good ones. He represents a class of men, not quite extinct even yet, whose leading characteristic is moral vanity and conceit, and who are never satisfied with a law that leaves them free to do right, unless it also give them power to keep others from doing wrong. Of course, therefore, he has too much conscience to mind his own business, and is too pure to tolerate mirth in others, because too much swollen and stiffened with self-love to be merry himself. But here again Mr. Verplanck has spoken so happily that we must needs quote him: "The gravity, the acquirement, the real talent and accomplishment of the man, all made ludicrous, fantastical, and absurd, by his intense vanity, is as true a conception as it is original and droll, and its truth may still be frequently attested by comparison with real Malvolios, to be found every where from humble domestic life up to the high places of learning, of the state, and even of the Church."- Maria's quaint stratagem of the letter is evidently for the purpose of disclosing to others what her keener sagacity has discovered long before; and its working lifts ber into a model of arch roguish mischievousness, with wit to plan and art to execute whatsoever falls within the scope of such a characThe scenes where the waggish troop, headed by this "noble gull-catcher" and most "excellent devil of wit," bewitch Malvo lio into "a contemplative idiot," practising upon his vanity and conceit until he seems ready to burst with an ecstasy of self-consequence, and they "laugh themselves into stitches" over him, are almost painfully diverting. At length, however, our merriment at seeing him "jet under his advanc'd plumes" passes into pity for his sufferings, and we feel a degree of resentment towards his ingenious persecutors. Doubtless the Poet meant to push the joke upon him so far as to throw our feelings over on his side, and make us take his part. For his character is such that perhaps nothing but excessive reprisals on his vanity could make us do justice to his real worth. The shrewd, mirth-loving Fabian, who in greedy silence devours up fun, being made so happy by the first tastings, that he dare not laugh lest the noise thereof should lose him the remainder; and the witty-wise Fool, who lives but to jest out philosophy, and moralize the scenes where he moves, by "pinning the pied lappets of his wit to the backs of all about him," complete this strange group of laughing and laughter-moving personages. ter. Such are the scenes, such the characters that enliven Olivia's mansion during the play; Olivia herself, calm, cheerful, of "smooth, discreet, and stable bearing," hovering about them sometimes unbending, never losing her dignity among them often checking, oftener enjoying their merry-makings, and occa sionally emerging from her seclusion to be plagued by the Duke's message and bewitched by his messenger: and Viola, always per fect in her part, yet always shrinking from it, appearing among them from time to time on her embassies of love; sometimes a partaker, sometimes a provoker, sometimes the victim, of their mischievous sport. All this array of comicalities, exhilarating as it is in itself, is rendered doubly so by the frequent changes and playings-in of poetry breathed from the sweetest spots of romance, and which "gives a very echo to the seat where Love is thron'd;" ideas and images of beauty creeping and stealing over the mind with footsteps so soft and delicate that we scarce know what touches us, - the motions of one that had learned to tread "As if the wind, not he, did walk, Nor prest a flower, nor bow'd a stalk." Upon this portion of the play Hazlitt remarks in his spirited way, -"Much as we think of catches, and cakes and ale, there is something that we like better. We have a friendship for Sir Toby ; we patronize Sir Andrew; we have an understanding with the Clown, a sneaking kindness for Maria and her rogueries; we feel a regard for Malvolio, and sympathize with his gravity, his smiles, his cross-garters, his yellow stockings, and imprisonment : But there is something that excites in us a stronger feeling than all this." Olivia is a considerable instance how much a fair and candid setting-forth may do to render an ordinary person attractive, and shows that for the home-bred comforts and fireside tenor of life such persons after all are apt to be the best; and it is not a little remarkable that one so wilful and perverse on certain points should be so agreeable and interesting upon the whole. If it seem rather naughty in her not to give the Duke a fair chance to try his powers upon her, she gets pretty well paid in falling a victim to the eloquence which her obstinacy stirs up and provokes. Nor is it altogether certain whether her conduct springs from a pride that will not listen where her fancy is not taken, or from an unambitious modesty that prefers not to "match above her degree." Her "beauty truly blent, whose red and white Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on," saves the credit of the fancy-smitten Duke in such an urgency of suit as might else breed some question of his manliness and her winning infirmity, as expressed in the sweet violence with which she hastens on "a contract and eternal bond of love" with the astonished and bewildered Sebastian, "that her most jealous and too doubtful soul may live at peace," shows how well the sternness of the brain may be tempered into amiability by the meekness of womanhood Manifold indeed are the attractions which the Poet has shed upon his heroes and heroines; yet perhaps the learned spirit of une man is more wisely apparent in the homekeeping virtues and unostentatious beauty of his average charac And surely the contemplation of Olivia may well suggest the question, whether the former be not sometimes too admirable to be so instructive as those whose graces walk more in the light of common day. ters. case. Similar thoughts might aptly enough be started by the Duke, who, without any very splendid or striking qualities, manages somehow to be a highly agreeable and interesting person. His character is merely that of an accomplished gentleman, enraptured at the touch of music, and the sport of thick-thronging fancies. It is plain that Olivia has rather enchanted his imagination than won his heart; though he is not himself aware that such is the This fancy-sickness, for it appears to be nothing else, naturally renders him somewhat capricious and fantastical, "unstaid and skittish" in his motions; and, but for the exquisite poetry which it inspires him to utter, would rather stir up our mirth than start our sympathy. To use an illustration from another play, Olivia is not so much his Juliet as his Rosaline; and perhaps a secret impression of something like this is the real cause of her rejecting his suit. Accordingly when he sees her placed beyond his hope he has no more trouble about her; but turns and builds a true affection where, during the preoccupancy of his imagination, so many sweet and tender appeals have been made to his heart. In Viola, what were else not a little scattered are thoroughly composed; her character being the unifying power that draws and binds together the several groups of persons in true dramatic consistency. Love-taught herself, it was for her to teach both the Duke and the Countess how to love indeed she plays into all the other parts, causing them to embrace and kiss within the compass of her circulation. And yet, like some subtle agency working most where we perceive it least, she does all this in such a way as not to render herself a special prominence in the play. It is observable, that the Poet has left it uncertain whether Viola was in love with the Duke before the assumption of her disguise, or whether her heart was won afterwards by reading "the book even of his secret soul" while wooing another. Nor does it much matter whether her passion were one of the motives, or one of the consequences, of her disguise, since in either case such a man as Olivia describes him to be might well find his way to tougher hearts than hers. But her love has none of the skittishness and unrest which mark the Duke's passion for Olivia: com plicated out of all the elements of her richly-gifted, sweetly-tempered nature, it is strong without violence; never mars the innate modesty of her character; is deep as life, tender as infancy, pure. peaceful, and unchangeable as truth. Mrs. Jameson, — who, with the best right to know what belongs to woman, unites a rare talent for taking others along with her and letting them see the choice things which her gifted, genial eye discerns, and who, in respect of Shakespeare's heroines, has left little for after critics to do but quote her words, remarks that "in Viola a sweet consciousness of her feminine nature is for ever breaking through her masquerade ;- she plays her part well, but never forgets, nor allows us to forget, that she is playing a part." And, sure enough, every thing about her save her dress is semblative a woman's part:" she has none of the pretty assumption of a pert, saucy, waggish manhood, which so delights us in the Rosalind of As You Like It; but she has that which, if not better in itself, is more becoming in her,- the inward and spiritual grace of modesty" pervading all she does and says. Even in her sweet-witted railleries with the comic characters there is all the while an instinctive drawing back of female delicacy, touching our sympathies, and causing us to feel most deeply what she is, when those with whom she is playing least suspect her to be other than she seems. And the same is true concerning her passion, of which she never so speaks as to compromise in the least the delicacies and proprieties of her sex, yet she lets fall many things from which the Duke easily gathers the true drift and quality of her feelings as soon as he learns what she is. But the great charm of her character lies in a moral rectitude so perfect as to be a secret unto itself; a clear, serene composure of truth, mingling so freely and smoothly with the issues of life, that while, and perhaps even because, she is herself unconscious of it, she is never once tempted to abuse or shirk her trust, though it be to play the attorney in a cause that makes so much against herself. In this respect she presents a fine contrast to Malvolio, who has much virtue indeed, yet not so much but that the counter-pullings of temptation have rendered him deeply conscious of it, and so drawn him into the vice, at once hateful and ridiculous, of moral pride. Twelfth Night naturally falls, by internal as well as external notes, into the middle period of the author's productive years. It has no such marks of vast but immature powers as are often to be met with in his earlier plays; nor any of "that intense idiosynerasy of thought and expression, · that unparalleled fusion of the intellectual with the passionate," which distinguishes his later ones. Every thing is calm and quiet, with an air of unruffled serenity and composure about it, as if the Poet had purposely taken to such matter as he could easily mould into graceful and entertaining forms; thus exhibiting none of the crushing muscularity of mind to which the hardest materials afterwards or else. where became as limber and pliant as clay in the hands of a potter. Yet the play has a marked severity of taste; the style, |