lieving Student of the Poet-Philosopher, will claim him as a Teacher on spiritual ground, and will at least endeavour to show cause why he does so. Holding that Ghost-Belief, rightly understood, is most rational and salutary, he will deem that it must have had the sanction of such a Thinker as Shakespeare.

If there is any one principle which ought to be specially adhered to above all others in any speculations regarding Shakespeare's opinions, it should surely be never to adduce a mere Opinion, exprest by one of his Characters, as his Opinion. Of those who do so, it will probably be found, that, to use Horatio's expression, they do but "botch the words up to fit their own thoughts." In the essay now made to show that Shakespeare apart from his Feelings as a Poet, believed as a Philosopher, in Supernatural Realities, no support to the idea will be sought from such means. Of course, such attempts must be held as equally illegitimate on the opposite side, and it does indeed seem wonderful that any real admirers of Shakespeare, could ever make such attempts, since they may know that it is very easy so, to attribute anything, even the most contrary things, to the Author, as witness, for example, the dialogue between Posthumus and the Jailer, in Cymbeline.

Nothing, indeed, is easier, than for an Author merely to make his Characters express opposite opinions, without having any fixt opinion or clear knowledge of his own, on the matter in hand; but it is quite another thing so to state the opinion as to involve his own knowledge. In attempting this, every one conversant with any given subject, knows how instantaneously ignorance is detected where it exists.

We are told that Law-terms, Sea-terms, &c., are used by Shakespeare in a manner that implies real knowledge of more than the mere existence of the words. So the

Ghost-Believer looks at Shakespeare not to see what opinions are exprest about Ghosts, but whether what is said by the Characters, or done in the Story, implies that the Author possest a Philosophy of the Subject.

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Here perhaps our Sceptical friends will smile at the mere idea of a Ghost-Believer's Philosophy: Nevertheless, they must be assured, that if we are mad, we do at all events claim to have, a method in our madness." For instance, a Ghost Believer would say that the Story of Hamlet might be a hard fact, as much as the Story of Tom Jones might be one. He believes, and can therefore think that Shakespeare might have believed: 1st. That Ghosts do appear objectively. 2nd. That several persons at once may see a Ghost. 3rd. That one person may, and another may not, as with Hamlet and the Queen. 4th. That the ends for which Ghosts may appear may be good, bad, or indifferent; may succeed or may fail; and that there is ⚫ both Fact and Philosophy for all this: So much received, we may believe in Hamlet.

If we are told that the Men who can believe all this, can believe anything, we say, No! For example, we could not believe in such a story as that of Frankenstein and the Monster, whom he is represented as in some sense, creating. We should say that such a thing, as a hard fact, was altogether contrary to the Laws, both of the Spiritual and Natural Worlds, and we are quite certain, that so understood, the writer did not believe in the like of it. Such stories therefore, we conceive to be essentially Faulty Art, whatever talent may be shewn in their execution.*

* It is not forgotten that there are works in which the Images are professedly Allegorical, but this little essay does not pretend to touch upon them. They, however, have their True and False, as well as those which are professedly Literal.

THE MEANING OF GHOST-BELIEF.

We will now then proceed to state what is meant by Ghost-Belief, and what are its supposed grounds. In the first place then, the Ghost-Believer conceives it to be a great truth, that every human being is truly and properly, a Ghost, clad for a time in an earthly body. Whether Shakespeare thought this or not, he has very beautifully exprest the Idea, in "Twelfth Night," when he makes Sebastian say,

"A Spirit I am indeed,

But am in that dimension grossly clad,

Which from the womb I did participate."

Act 5, Scene 1.

Altho' it has been assumed above, that no opinion exprest by one of the Poet's Characters is to be quoted as his opinion also, yet any piece of wisdom, or of thought, as distinguished from an opinion, may be called his wisdom, or his thought. Now if it should be deemed that no wisdom is contained in a given passage, say the one just quoted, still the fact remains, that the Ghost-Believer's thought has been so felicitously exprest, and that too in a place where Shakespeare might just has easily have made Sebastian answer more like a modern philosopher, by saying that he was "not a Spirit, but a real Man of flesh and blood." The character of Sebastian is one which justifies us in concluding, that of two possible answers, Shakespeare would assign to him the one which he himself considered as the most sensible. The same thought is found likewise in Lorenzo's speech in the "Merchant of Venice" (Act 5, Scene 1), wherein he discourses of the harmony which is in "immortal Souls," but which we cannot hear, because "this muddy vesture of decay, doth grossly close it in."

In the next place, and this is a point of the highest importance, the Ghost-Believer holds, that the Ghost, which is truly the Man, is in a Human Form, as much as the body is; the body being in that form, solely because the Ghost or Soul is so. Men instinctively personify the Virtues and Vices by Human Forms: Ask the painter to delineate Revenge and Mercy, and he will, as a matter of course, present you with a male and a female figure, in which Revenge and Mercy will be depicted, not merely in the expression of the heads, but in the whole formation of the body, and in the action of every part. If the Artist be competent to paint what he and every one else feels, all will know his meaning. That every ruling Passion affects and shapes the whole body, is conceived by the GhostBelievers to be an irresistable argument for the Human Form of the Ghost or Soul, and the idea has been exprest by Shakespeare in his usual masterly style; it should also be well noted, that he has assigned the thought to the wise and observing Ulysses. Speaking of Creșida, Ulysses says,

"Fie, fie upon her!

There's a language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,
Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out
At every joint and motive of her body."

Again, how common is it for us to say of some one, who at first sight, we thought ordinary, or even ugly, but afterwards find to be amiable, that we lose sight of the bodily defect, and become conscious of a pleasing, and in some instances, even of a beautiful expression; a thing inconceivable on any ground, but the Human Form of the Ghost, or Soul; a form beautiful if the moral state be good, ugly if it be bad, which is again exemplified in the diabolical expressions sometimes perceived in faces naturally handsome. In both instances the beautiful and the

ugly Ghost or Soul, shines thro' the external, earthly countenance, and actually, when the good or evil feeling is at work, alters the very form of that external countenance. These general facts Shakespeare has exactly painted in Desdemona's words.

"I saw Othello's Visage in his Mind."

The common expression, that we see the mind in the face, of course conveys a truth, or rather a part of the truth, but Desdemona's words are fuller; they give the fact that the Mind has a Visage of its own. This is to be taken as an absolute truth, which is also the reason why it is poetical. To say that anything can be really poetical, and yet not true, is a mere contradiction. Shakespeare did not so express Desdemona's feelings by accident; we must think that what in the most of persons is simply felt, was, by him, also most dearly seen.

The doubt or denial of the great truth, that the Human Soul has the Human Form, which "is a combination and a form indeed," places the Doubters in the most distressing dilemmas. They call their doubts and denials, Philosophy. but what Philosophy can that be, which deals only in Negations.

* For example, hear Sir Walter Scott, in his Demonology

"Philosophers might plausibly argue, that when the Soul is divorced from the body, it loses all those qualities which made it, when clothed with a mortal shape, obvious to the organs of its fellow men. The abstract idea of a Spirit certainly implies, that it has neither substance, form, shape, voice, or anything which can render its presence visible, or sensible to human faculties. But these sceptic doubts of Philosophers, on the possibility of the appearance of such separated Spirits, do not arise till a certain degree of information has dawned upon a country, and even then only reach a small proportion of reflecting and better informed members of Society.