Glasgow Courier. — 1864-04-28 (Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland)

SHAKESPEARE.  Englishmen do not keep the twenty-third of April— St. George's day—as Irishmen keep St. Patrick's, and Scotchmen keep St. Andrew's. The great champion who slew the dragon is not much cared for, but a large portion of' the human race commemorates to-day the, birth of a Warwickshire boy 300 years ago. Since he first drew breath ten generations of men have come and gone, and the world has seen vast changes—dynasties melting away, nations dropping out of account, great conquerors crossing the Earth, and mighty empires rising out of the dust—new literatures, new, arts new sciences. Since the world began thero are not to be named three centuries which‘have• made such a complete revolution in the affairs of men or in -the 'aspects of nature, and which, reckoning not by time, hut' by events, are so full of moment or so long in the account. Yet, in all the ages, we cannot point to any man who, for a mere human achievement, has been remembered one century after his birth as the child born at Stratford-on-Avon is now remembered after the lapse of the throe longest centuries in the history of mankind. It is the son of a homely alderman whose bilth we celebrate —the son of a grazier, who was bred among the emirs and the calves; but his intellectual work has raised him to a throne recognised from continent to continent and lasting from age to age. Shakespeare gives voice to every wave of feeling—to every mood of the mind. He knows all the pulses of sorrow as well as all the springs of laughter. He studied hate as well,as love, and low appetite as well as lofty ambition. Men and women, lords and commons, fays and hags, he knows them all. Landsman and seaman, tailor and apothecary, are alike to him. His revelation of the workings of the heart is a ceaseless marvel. When the murder of Duncan is discovered, Lady Macbeth expresses her astonishment—" What, in our house ? " She is not like an innocent woman astonished at the murder, but that it stould have been perpetrated under her roof. Is there anything that can be compared for knowledge of human nature, and consummate skill in managing it, with the great• speech of Antony over the dead body of Ca3sar ? Similar examples might be quoted without number, 'arid will crowd on the recollection of every intelligent reader. But Shakespeare's perfect- knowledge of the human heart would appear cruel were it not tempered with perfect sympathy. If no man has exhibited so clearly as he the fralities of our nature and our self-deceptions in fancying ourselves better than we are, it is a rare thing for him to make any one positively hateful. There is no malice in the ridicule with wilich he covers a fault; there is infinite pity in the fate which overtakes" the offender. _See Shylock, and note how we pity him as lie goes out of sight a ruined man—reft of his vengeance, of his ducats, of his child, half reft of his religion. The tender memory of his Leah, which makes the loss of the turquoise she gave him when he was a bachelor one of his sharpest tortures, imparts a touch of softness to his character; and the revenge for which he thirsted is palliated by the strong provocation of a Jew who has feelings like other men, but is treated as if he had none. Or, again, take Lady Macbeth, and remember how she herself could not imbrue her hands 'lit Duncan's blood. "Had ho not resemble Imy father as he slept, I had dono't." She, too has the tender part inher nature, and with all her cruel ambition has the family affections strongly developed. Not only has she a warm place in her heart for the memory of her father, "she has given suck, and knows how' tender' tie to love the babe that milks her ;" all her fierce ambition is inspired by devotion to her husband, and at last the mind of this strong woman gives wayin the contemplation of her guilt, her higher nature gets the mastery, and she dies in an agony of remorse. Or, yet again, take lago, than whom in the whole range of Shakespeare's Characters there is not a more hateful villain. Shakespeare never, like other dramatists, paints gratuitous villainy, and in always suggesting a strong motive he mixes mercy with reprobation. lago, it must be observed, is labouring under the impression that the Moer,hacl been too intimate with his wife -Emilia •