with his hands, &c. The Ghost is entirely the invention of Shakspeare. In the original story, the catastrophe is full of terrors. Amleth having made the nobility drunk, set fire to the palace, and, during the confusion, gone to the usurper's apartment, tells him, Amleth was there to revenge his father's murder; upon which the King, jumping out of bed, is instantly put to death, and Amleth proclaimed King."

QUALIFICATIONS OF A PRIME-MINISTER TO

"

WRITE TRAGEDY.

Mr. Spence, in the preface to his edition of the tragedy of Gorboduc," has observed, with reference to the situation of the author, Lord Buckhurst, in the Court of Queen Elizabeth, that "'tis no wonder if the language of kings and statesmen should be less happily imitated by a poet, than a privy counsellor." "This," says Warton, "is an insinuation, that Shakspeare, who has left many historical tragedies, was less able to conduct some parts of a royal story than the statesman, Lord Buckhurst. But I venture to pronounce, that whatever merit there is in this play ("Gorboduc,") it is more owing to the poet, than the privy counsellor. If a first minister

was to write a tragedy, I believe the piece will be the better, the less it has of the first minister. When a statesman turns poet, I should not wish him of the Cabinet. I know not why a king should be better qualified than a private man to make kings talk in blank verse."

"Could Richelieu write so good a tragedy as Corneille or Racine?" asks Mr. Ashby, who relates the following instructive anecdote on the subject. "Queen Caroline was fond of talking to learned men. One day she was earnest with Bishop Gibson to tell her, which he liked best, tragedy or comedy? The Bishop parried the question by alleging he had not read or seen any thing of that kind a long while. The Queen still persisting in her inquiry, he said, Though I cannot answer your Majesty's question, yet your Majesty can inform me in one particular that nobody else can.' She expressed great readiness to do so, and he added, Pray, do Kings and Queens, when alone, talk such fine language as on the stage?" This was enough."

BEN JONSON.

As the workmen, in September, 1823, were excavating a vault, to receive the remains of

the Lady of Sir Robert Wilson, in the North Aisle of Westminster Abbey, they discovered, at the head of it, a leaden coffin, placed in the ground perpendicularly, with the head downwards in a hole about two feet square. At the top of the hole was a square stone, about eighteen inches wide, on which were the initials "B. J." cut in characters rather illegible: on inquiry amongst the old men of the Abbey, they state that the tradition is, that when Ben Jonson was seriously ill, he was asked where he would be buried? He said, "If I can get foot ground, in Westminster Abbey, I will be interred there," and on the Dean of Westminster being applied to, he gave sufficient ground to admit the corpse. in a perpendicular position, as it was found. The skeleton of the deceased was entire, and in a singular state of preservation.

FOOLS' PARTS.

"My husband, Timothy Tattle," says a character in one of Ben Jonson's plays, "God rest his poor soul! was wont to say, there was no play without a fool and a devil in it; he was for the devil style, God bless him! "The devil for his money," would he say. "I would fain see the

devil." "And why would you so fain see the devil?" would I say. "Because he has horns, wife, and may be a cuckold as well as a devil," he would answer. "You are e'en such another! husband,” quoth I. "Was the devil ever married? Where do you read the devil was ever so honourable as to commit matrimony?"—" The play will tell us that," says he; "we'll go see it to-morrow." Staples of news.

"It was wont," says good master John Geb, (Coll. Ex.)" when an interlude was to be acted in a country town, the first question that an hobnailed spectator made, before he would pay his penny to goe in, was, whether there bee a devile and a foole in the play? and if the foole get upon the divell's back and beat him with his coxcombe till he rore, the play is complete." The fool out of the snare. p. 68.

These extracts allude to the old moralities. The fool or clown of the new comedy, however, succeeded to all the celebrity of his predecessor, and was inquired after with equal impatience. Goffe has a pleasant passage in his " Careless Shepherdess," which gives a good idea of the delight which the audience never failed to express on the appearance of a favourite fool.

Why, I would have the fool in every act,
Be it comedy or tragedy. I have laugh'd
Until I cry'd again, to see what faces

The rogue would make. O, it does me good

To see him hold out's chin, hang down his hands,
And twirle his bawble: there is never a part
About him but breaks jests.

I had rather hear him leap, or laugh, or cry,
Than hear the gravest speech in all the play.
I never saw Reave peeping through the curtain
But ravishing joy enter'd into my heart."

Emanuel Reave, the Fool here alluded to, was one of the original actors, in Beaumont and Fletcher's plays; these, however, could have afforded little scope for the fine acting which gave such delight to the good landlord in Goffe's prelude; and which, in all probability, was exhibited in some of those admirable clowns whom Shakspeare has delineated.

THE FIRST COMEDY WRITER.

THE first comic writer, of whom we have an account, was no less a man than Dr. John Still, Bishop of Bath and Wells, who produced, in 1575, that curious comedy, entitled "Gammer Gurton's Needle." He was the son of William Still, of Grantham, in Lincolnshire, and was ad