saw the little man so frightened himself, it was that which took hold of me." "And dost thou imagine, then, Partridge," cries Jones, "that he was really frightened?" "Nay, sir," said Partridge, "did not you yourself observe afterwards, when he found it was his own father's spirit, and how he was murdered in the garden, how his fear forsook him by degrees, and he was struck dumb with sorrow, as it were, just as I should have been, had it been my own case? But hush! O la! what noise is that? There he is again! Well, to be certain, though I know there is nothing at all in it, I am glad I am not down yonder, where those men are." Then turning his eyes again upon Hamlet, "Ay, you may draw your sword: what signifies a sword against the power of the devil?”

During the second act, Partridge made very few remarks; he greatly admired the fineness of the dresses; nor could he help observing upon the king's countenance. "Well," said he, "how people may be deceived by faces! Nulla fides fronti,1 is, I find, a true saying. Who would think by looking in the king's face, that he had ever committed a murder?" He then inquired after the ghost; but Jones, who intended he should be surprised, gave him no other satisfaction than that he might possibly see him again soon, and in a flash of fire. Partridge sat in fearful expectation of this; and now, when the ghost made his next appearance, Partridge cries out, "There, sir, now! what say you now? is he frightened now, or no? As much frightened as you think me (and, to be sure, nobody

can help some fears); I would not be in so bad a condition as, what's his name, Squire Hamlet is there, for all the world. Bless me! what's become of the spirit? As I am a living soul, I thought I saw him sink into the earth." "Indeed, you saw right," answered Jones. "Well, well," cries Partridge, "I know it is only a play; and besides, if there was anything in all this, Madam Miller would not laugh so; for as to you, sir, you would not be afraid, I believe, if the devil was here in person. There, there-ay, no wonder you are in such a passion! shake the vile wicked wretch to pieces: if she was my own mother, I should serve her so. To be sure, all duty to a mother is forfeited by such wicked doings. Ay, go about your business : I hate the sight of you."

Our critic was now pretty silent till the play which Hamlet introduces before the king. This he did not at first understand, till Jones explained it to him; but he had no sooner entered into the spirit of it, than he began to bless himself that he had never committed murder. Then, turning to Mrs. Miller, he asked her if she did not imagine the king looked as if he was touched. "Though he is," said he, "a good actor, and does all he can to hide it. Well, I would not have so much to answer for as that wicked man there, to sit upon a much higher chair than he sits upon. No wonder he runs away; for your sake I'll never trust an innocent face again."

The grave-digging scene next engaged the attention of Partridge, who expressed much surprise

at the number of skulls thrown upon the stage; to which Jones answered that it was one of the most famous burial places about town. "No wonder, then," cries Partridge, “the place is haunted. But I never saw in my life a worse grave-digger. I had a sexton, when I was clerk, that should have dug three graves while he was digging one; the fellow handles a spade as if it was the first time he had ever had one in his hand. Ay, ay, you may sing; you had rather sing than work, I believe." Upon Hamlet's taking up the skull, he cried out, "Well, it's strange to see how fearless some men are! I could never bring myself to touch anything belonging to a dead man, on any account. He seemed frightened enough too at the ghost, I thought. Nemo omnibus horis sapit."2

Little more worth remembering occurred during the play; at the end of which Jones asked him which of the players he had liked best. To this he answered, with some appearance of indignation at the question, “The king, without doubt."

"Indeed, Mr. Partridge," says Mrs. Miller, "you are not of the same opinion with the town; for they are all agreed that Hamlet is acted by the best player who was ever on the stage."

"He the best player!" cries Partridge, with a contemptuous sneer. "Why, I could act as well as he myself. I am sure, if I had seen a ghost, I should have looked in the very same manner, and done just as he did. And then, to be sure, in that scene, as you called it, between him and his mother, where you told me he acted so fine, why, Lord

help me! any man, that is, any good man, that had such a mother, would have done exactly the same. I know you are only joking with me; but, indeed, madam, though I was never at a play in London, yet I have seen acting before in the country, and the king for my money: he speaks all his words distinctly, half as loud again as the other. Anybody may see he is an actor.”

Henry Fielding.

XLVIII.

ENGLISH LITERATURE OF THE
XVI. CENTURY.*

IN approaching the Early English Literature in my last lecture, I stated that, in forming a general notion of the extent of it, we may regard the era of our literature as a period of five centuries, from about 1350 to the present time-the middle of the fourteenth century down to the middle of the nineteenth. The student would, however, be misguided, were he led to believe, as he might naturally do, that, during those five centuries, there was a continuous and uninterrupted progress, that the light of literature was faithfully handed from sire to son, and that new fires were kindled, in due succession, to light the new ages as the world moved on. Looking to that little island of our forefathers, we

* From Lectures on English Literature and History.

shall see, in its history, how it travelled on with other lights flashing over it than the quiet illuminIation that shines from the studious watch-towers of poets and scholars. Such tranquil beams were, in many a year, dimmed with the fierce and lurid fires which war in its worst form, civil strife, and ecclesiastical persecutions were casting over the land.

The familiar and well-known metaphor which has long designated Chaucer as the "Morning Star" of English poetry, while it is most apt in telling of that primal and fair shining in the eastern sky of our literature, is not so truthful in its relations to the later as to the earlier times. The light of day came on too slowly; and, indeed, a long night followed that early outbreak of the imagination of England's first great poet. Nearly two centuries passed before another arose worthy to take place beside him. Mr. Hallam's historical study of the progress of the European mind during the Middle Ages, has led him to remark, that "the trite metaphors of light and darkness, of dawn and twilight, are used carelessly by those who touch on the literature of the Middle Ages, and suggest, by analogy, an uninterrupted succession, in which learning, like the sun, has dissipated the shadows of barbarism. But, with closer attention, it is easily seen that this is not a correct representation; that taking Europe generally, far from being in a more advanced stage of learning at the beginning of the fifteenth century than two hundred years before, she had, in many respects, gone backward, and