Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Russia, Prussia, France and England. It| was not long until Austria renewed the agitation of the question, either under pretence that the republic was a sort of nuisance to its great neighbors, or because she wanted it, as Ahab did Naboth's vineyard. But the late King of Prussia would not listen to the proposition. Not long after the present King ascended the throne of his father, Austria again brought forward the question. Prussia still refused. At last the recent outbreak occurred, and several thousand men, Cracovites and Polish refugees, taking up arms, sallied forth to promote a rebellion in Gallicia or Austrian Poland. This ill-advised and ill-directed movement, although it ended in defeat, gave Austria the occasion she desired for pressing successfully her suit, saying to the still reluctant King of Prussia, that there never could be tranquillity on the borders until the republic of Cracow was abolished. In an evil hour Frederick William IV. consented that Austria (Russia having yielded) might take possession of Cracow, but upon the express condition that she should first gain the consent of France and England. The consent of Prussia having been gained, Metternich did not wait for that of France and England, but, after having taken possession of the city and territory in question, went to work to negotiate with both about the affair as a "fail accompli." France yielded readily enough, whilst protesting against the transaction. England was displeased, but could do nothing but remonstrate. The King of Prussia was greatly grieved, as we know from good authority, but the evil was done. This is a simple history of the case, and sets the conduct of that monarch in a very different light from that in which it is very generally

viewed.

But we must bring this sketch of the life and character of Frederick William IV. to a close. We have endeavored to speak impartially and truly of that monarch, but are well aware that this notice will be considered by many as entirely too favorable. This we cannot help. We have given our conscientious opinions respecting his character and conduct. We could not do otherwise, having derived them from sources that are worthy, as we believe, of all confidence. By many in

Germany, especially by certain classes of people who hate his Protestant and strictly evangelical faith, he is greatly spoken against. There is an infidelity in that country of the most malignant character, and those who have imbibed it are, without exception, the enemies of the King of Prussia. They hate his religious creed, and by consequence, they hate him. among the emigrants from that land, who come to our shores, there are many counterparts of those we have just referred to. Some of these cannot find epithets sufficiently abusive to express all their hatred of his Majesty.†

*

And

It would have been very easy for us to have written such a notice of the King of Prussia as would have chimed in with the prejudices of those people among us who think that it is impossible for a king to be either an honest or a sensible man. There are brawlers among us who find it convenient and easy to court popularity with men of ignorant and vulgar minds, by denouncing everything in the shape of monarchy, and all persons who belong to what are called the high ranks. But there are also men, of all parties, who have too much elevation of mind and justice of heart to sympathize, for one moment, with such a spirit.

For ourselves, we dare affirm that we yield to no one in admiration of republican government. We believe that it is the normal one. The Divine Being gave his people-his "chosen nation"—a republican economy; and a glorious commonwealth it was! But when He found

Whilst there are many truly enlightened, wellinformed, and excellent foreigners, who come to us from Germany, France, and other portions of Europe, there are not a few who know very little about the countries from which they have come, save the petty localities in which they were born, and in which they passed their lives down, till the day of quitting their native lands. The opinions of both facts and men whereof they had no sources of such are very little worth, especially in regard to information save the exaggerated, and often baseless and absurd stories which they heard some one or other repeat.

+ We have heard Frederick William IV. called, by some of his compatriots of the class alluded to in the text, a "liar," a "tyrant," a "knave," a "drunkard," and we know not what all. Such people are entirely welcome to their own opinions of his Majesty, and every one else; but they presume too much, if they think that the people of this country will receive them without examination, or that they will allow them to outweigh those of great and good men in Germany who have the best means of knowing the truth.

that they were not fit for such a government, "He gave them a king in his anger." In both cases, however, he required his people to obey the government de facto. And much as we love our invaluable political institutions, and deem them truly incomparable, we should consider ourselves bereft of common sense, if, knowing the state of the world as we do, we should insist upon it, that all other nations are at present prepared for them.

We believe that God permits the nations to decide for themselves what form of government they will have. From the first, our government has acted upon the principle that, in all ordinary cases, the government de facto is the government de jure. And as we thus expect other nations to treat our government with respect, it is our duty to treat the forms of government which they choose to maintain, with similar respect. It is this that has inspired a confidence in all other governments, in relation to us-be their form what it may—which is in the highest degree honorable to us.

We have spoken of the domestic happiness of Frederick William IV. with deep interest, for we know no greater proof of the goodness of a man's heart than his love for his wife and family, nor a stronger pledge of general rectitude of purpose. We will add that, as the King can find very little time for reading, amid the cares and burthens of government, he still has the distinguished and excellent Humboldt with

him several hours daily, in order to derive from the conversation of the greatest savant living, that knowledge and instruction which he has no leisure to gain from books.

He

In terminating this sketch, we have only to remark, that whilst we consider the position of Frederick William IV. to be extremely difficult, and even critical, we think that never had monarch such an opportunity to immortalize himself. Let him be prompt in giving to his people a good Constitution-one corresponding to the intelligence and the demands of the age-and he cannot fail to render his memory illustrious in all coming time. might, if he were so disposed, rally all Germany around his throne, and create a great and happy empire in the heart of Europe, which would be an effectual barrier against Gallic ambition on the one hand, and Russian on the other. And if Austria and Russia should attempt to hinder or molest him, he need only threaten them both with the restoration of Poland to her ancient independence, and the limits she had in the 16th century. Uniting Germany around him, he could at a word raise up a mighty kingdom on its eastern frontier, composed of the countries inhabited by the western branches of the Slavonic races-Poland, Bohemia, Hungary-and effectually put it out of the power of Austria and Russia ever to trouble the rest of Europe.

HAMLET.

THE tragedy of Hamlet has probably | caused more of perplexity and discussion, than any other of Shakspeare's plays. Others of them may have more of interest for particular minds, or particular states of mind, or particular periods of life; but none of them equals Hamlet in universality of interest. Doubtless this results, in part, from the hero's being "a concentration of all the interests that belong to humanity." His history is the very extraction and

efficacy of the thoughts, and feelings, and inward experiences of us all; his life is a picture of blighted hopes and crushed affections, from which we may solve the darkest enigmas of our existence, and over which our aching hearts may bleed themselves into repose. Hamlet, in short, is an universal genius, in the depths and variety of his feelings and faculties, almost rivalling Shakspeare himself, and engaged, not in creating or revealing the true, the beau

tiful, and the good, but in conflict with the dark powers of the world. If there be a heart, whose best affections have never been breathed upon by hope, nor broken down by despair; which has never been called to weep over the desecration or the degradation of its most cherished objects; which has no springs of life to be sweetened by sympathy, or embittered by disappointment; and which has put forth no promises to be fanned by airs from heaven, or scorched by blasts from hell; such a heart may indeed contemplate the picture of Hamlet without emotion, and may find exemption from the sorrows of life in the iceberg of its own insensibility.

Coleridge very finely remarks somewhere, that Shakspeare's characters are classes of men individualized. Of most of them, this seems to us profoundly true; and Hamlet seems to differ from the others, in that he is the race itself individualized. He is a sort of glass wherein we may all see ourselves, provided we have any self; and it is not so correct to say, that he represents any one man or class of men, as that he represents them all. Hamlet, in short, is the very abridgment and eclecticism of humanity: in the words of another, it is we who are Hamlet.

question is, why, with this unanimity as to his being a man, do men differ so much as to what sort of a man he is?

agen

In reasoning upon facts, we are apt to forget what complex, many-sided things we are dealing with. We often speak of them as very simple and intelligible things, whereas, in reality, they are most profoundly and inscrutably mysterious: they may indeed be used to explain other things, but they cannot themselves be explained. For example, how many causes, elements, conditions, and processes go to the forming of a rose? The combined cies of all nature work together in its production are all represented by it, and inferable from it. Thus facts involve and infer many things at the same time; they present manifold elements and qualities in consistency and unity, and so express a diversity of meanings which cannot be gathered up into a form of logical explanation. Even if we seize and draw out, severally and successively, all the properties of a fact, still we are as far as ever from producing the effect of their combination in the fact itself. It is this mysteriousness of facts that begets our respect for them, our docility to them, and our interest in them: could we master them, we should cease to regard them: could we explain them, we should feel at liberty to substitute our explanations for the things explained. For, to see round and through a thing, implies a sort of conquest over it; and when we get, or think we have got, above a thing, we naturally either overlook it, or else look down upon it finding or fancying we have mastered a thing, we are apt to neglect it, or, what is worse, put off that humility towards it, which, besides being itself the better part of wisdom, is our only key to the remainder.

Accordingly, scarce any character in history has provoked so great a diversity of opinion as Hamlet; for the more generic and comprehensive a man is, the more various will the judgments of men naturally be concerning him. One man thinks Hamlet is great, but wicked; another, that he is good, but weak; a third, that he is a coward, and dare not act; a fourth, that he has too much intellect for his will, and so reflects away the time of action. Doubtless there are facts in the representation which, considered by themselves, would sustain any one of these views; but none of them seems reconcilable with all the facts taken together. Yet, notwith-ories; for, "in so great a store of properstanding this diversity of facts and conclusions, all agree in thinking, and feeling, and speaking about Hamlet as an actual person. It is easy, indeed, to invest with plausibility almost any theory in regard to him; but it is extremely hard to make any theory comprehend the whole subject: and, though all are impressed with the truth of the character, no one is satisfied with another's explanation of it. The

VOL. I. NO. I. NEW SERIES.

7

In this complexity of facts, is obviously contained the material of innumerable the

ties belonging to the self-same thing, every man's mind may take hold of some special consideration above the rest;" and it is characteristic of facts, that, seen through any given theory, they always seem to prove only that one, though really affording equal proof to fifty other theories. In short, many of the elements, perhaps all the elements of truth, may meet together in a fact; and nothing is more common than for several minds

to single out different elements of the same fact, and then go on to reason from a part, as from the whole. Hence, there naturally come to be various opinions respecting the same fact generalizing too hastily from the surface of things, men often arrive at contradictory conclusions, forgetting, that of a given fact, a vast many things may be true in their place and degree, yet none of them true in such sort as to hinder the truth of others. Human life is full of practical as well as speculative errors and mistakes, resulting from this partial and one-sided view of things: seizing some one principle, or being seized by it, men proceed, as they say, to carry it out; never stopping to think how it is limited and restrained on all sides by other principles. Thus men often draw a button so near the eye, as to shut out all the rest of creation, and then go smashing through the world, mistaking their own ignorance or obstinacy for conscientiousness.

Now Hamlet is undoubtedly the most complex character in dramatic literature. He is all varieties of character in one; is continually turning up a new side, appearing under a new phase, undergoing some new development; and before we can measure and map him in any one form, he has passed into another. He thus touches us at all points, surrounds us, as it were, so that great circumspection is required to see the whole of him at once, and so to avoid mistaking him for several persons. This complexity and versatility of character has often been mistaken for inconsistency; hence the contradictory opinions respecting him, different minds taking up very different impressions of him, and even the same mind taking up very different impressions of him at different times. Hamlet, in short, like other facts, is many-sided, and many men of many minds may see themselves in different sides of him; but when, upon comparing notes, they find him agreeing with them all, they are perplexed, and conclude him inconsistent, because they are themselves too one-sided to recognize his consistency. In so great a diversity of elements and principles, they lose the perception of identity, and cannot see how he can be so many and still be but one. Doubtless, Hamlet seems the more real, for the very reason that we cannot nnderstand him; our inability to see

through him, or to discern the source and manner of his impressions upon us, brings him closer to nature, and makes him appear the more like a fact, and so widens and deepens his hold on our thoughts. For where there is life, there must naturally be more or less of change, the very law of life being identity in mutability; and in Hamlet, the variety and rapidity of changes are so managed, as only to infer the more intense, active, and prolific vitality. In this multitude of changes, however, it is extremely difficult to perceive the constant principle; these outward contradictions make the character more powerful, indeed, on the feelings, but much less intelligible to the mind; they help us to feel, but hinder us from seeing, the inward vital unity whence they spring.

As is generally the case with Shakspeare's characters, in order to apprehend Hamlet aright, it is necessary to go round behind the text into the elements and processes of his mind, of which the text but gives the results. For one of the excellencies, in which Shakspeare is without a competitor, is that of painting the interior history of minds. While unfolding their present condition, he, at the same time, suggests a long series of preceding conditions; portrays in far-stretching perspective the various stages and changes of a mind, each growing out of, and growing above, the one that preceded it. Among these instances of historical perspective, perhaps there is none more worthy of study than Hamlet.

Up to his father's death, Hamlet's mind, busied in developing its innate riches, had found room for no sentiments towards others but a gentle and generous trust and confidence. Delighted with the appearances of good, and protected by his rank from the naked approaches of evil, he had no motive to pry through the semblances into the reality of surrounding characters. The ideas of princely elevation and of moral rectitude, springing forth simultaneously in his mind, had intertwisted their fibres closely and firmly together. While the chaste forms of youthful imagination had kept his own heart pure, he f had framed his conceptions of others according to the model within himself. To the feelings of the son, the prince, the gentleman, the friend, and the scholar,

had lately been joined the feelings of the lover; and his heart, oppressed by the redundancy of hopes and joys that enrich=ed it, had breathed forth its fullness in = "almost all the holy vows of heaven." Though soaring at will into the loftiest, or grasping the widest, or scanning the deepest regions of thought, he yet felt how poor and paltry are all the gifts and shows of intellect, compared to purity, and gentleness, and lowliness of heart; could repose, with all the satisfaction which superior natures alone can know, upon the bosom of virgin innocence and virgin loveliness; and in the simple goodness which is unconscious of itself, from its very perfection, could discern a worth which puts to shame the proudest exhibitions and triumphs of mind.

In his father, endowed with every royal and manly quality, Hamlet had realized the bright ideal of character which he aspired to exemplify in himself. Whatever noble images and ideas he had gathered from the fields of pcetry and philosophy, he had learned to associate with that sacred name. To the throne he looked forward with hope and with fear, as an elevation from whence to diffuse the blessings of a wise sovereignty, and receive the homage of a grateful submission. To reproduce in himself his father's character, was, in his view, to deserve, and therefore to secure, his father's place; and as the crown was not hereditary, he regarded his own prospects of succession as suspended on the continuance of his father's life, until he could discover in himself the virtues that originated his father's title. In his father's death, therefore, he lost the chief support of both his affections and his pretensions.

But though bereavement and disappointment had thus united to teach Hamlet the power of sorrow, the foundations of his peace and happiness were yet unshaken. The prospects of the prince had perhaps vanished, only to disclose still brighter prospects for the man. He could still love, and trust, and revere; the fire-side and the student's bower were yet open to him; truth and beauty, thought and affection, had not yet hidden their faces from him. His mind, though deeply saddened and Subdued, was not diseased; and his bereavement had the effect to quicken and chasten his sensibility without disordering

his affections. With a heart, cunning and prompt to discover and appropriate the remunerations of life, he could compensate the loss of some objects, with a more free and tranquil enjoyment of such as remained. In the absence of his father, he could collect and concentrate upon his mother the feelings hitherto shared between them; and in cases like this, the part of an object often exceeds the whole, inasmuch as a religious feeling towards the dead comes in to enrich and sanctify an affection for the living. And even if his mother also had but died, the loss, though unspeakably bitter, would not have been baleful to him; for, though separated from the chief objects of his love, and trust, and reverence, he would still have retained those sentiments themselves in all their strength and beauty. Nay, death would not so much have taken her away from him, as brought her nearer to his feelings and raised her to a higher place in them; as her form vanished from his sight, the sweet, sacred image of a mother, which filial piety loves to cherish, would have come,

"Apparelled in more precious habit, More moving, delicate, and full of life, Into the eye and prospect of his soul, Than when she lived indeed."

For when those whom such a being loves die with their honors fresh and bright about them, they become, in some sort, omnipresent and immortal to him:

"The future brightens on his sight, For on the past has fallen a light That tempts him to adore."

It is not with his mother, however, but with his faith in her, that Hamlet is forced to part; it is not herself, but her honor, that dies to him. To his prophetic soul her hasty and incestuous marriage brings at once conviction of his mother's infidelity and suspicion of his uncle's treachery to his father. In the disclosure of her guilt and baseness his best affections themselves suffer death; for while, to such a mind, death immortalizes the objects of its love, infamy annihilates them. Where he has most loved, and trusted, and revered, there he finds himself most deceived. The

« AnteriorContinuar »