He is spiteful, sneering, and restlessly sarcastic. He is wearisome in his perpetual effort to be severe. No wonder that Timon, when he is driving him off, exclaims, as he flings a stone after him, "Away, thou tedious rogue!" He is vain of his splenetic mood, and values himself upon his ill-nature. When the Fool makes some fleering rejoinder, he says, "That answer might have become Apemantus," as though he really grudged another a snappish retort. When Timon greets him on his entrance with, "Good-morrow to thee, gentle Apemantus," he replies, "Till I be gentle, stay for my good-morrow;" as though proud of his boorhood. His mere railing grates upon Timon's sore feelings in the period of his adversity, whose resentments lie too deep for such wordy abuse as Apemantus's. Timon's wounded heart shrinks from joining in these shallow and brawling vituperations. His grave sense of injury will not let him find comfort in the conventional cynicisms of the habitual churl. He knows that he has real cause to feel what the other only affects to feel. The poet could scarcely have given us a stronger impression of Timon's genuine wrongs, and of his being wounded to the soul at them, than by the way in which he has made him reject fellowship with Apemantus. Timon knows that his own griefs-his absolute experience-supply him with far greater truths of bitterness than any uttered by the professional philosopher. Therefore, when Apemantus, accusing him of aping philosophic acrimony, says, "Do not assume my likeness," Timon indignantly retorts, "Were I like thee, I'd throw away myself." And upon Apemantus proceeding to school him farther, how grandly the real sufferer, in his galled wrath, turns upon the amateur complainer, and how fine is the poetic diction throughout! Apemantus tauntingly asks : Think'st thou the bleak air, thy boisterous chamberlain, And skip when thou point'st out? Will the cold brook, To cure thy o'er-night's surfeit? Call the creatures,— Of wreakful heaven, whose bare unhousèd trunks, To the conflicting elements expos'd, Answer mere nature,-bid them flatter thee; Apem. If thou didst put this sour-cold habit on The other, at high wish: Best state, contentless, Thou should'st desire to die, being miserable. Freely command, thou wouldst have plunged thyself The icy precepts of respect, that follow'd The sugar'd game before thee. But myself, The mouths, the tongues, the eyes, the hearts of men Thy nature did commence in suff'rance; time Hath made thee hard in't. Why shouldst thou hate men? They never flatter'd thee: What hast thou given? Hence, begone! Thou hadst been a knave and flatterer. 39 There is a short scene in this same play of "Timon of Athens where Shakespeare, with his usual skill in casuistry, has argued a question on both sides,-the question of violence, bloodshed, and homicide; together with what should be the leniency or severity such crime ought to meet from its judges. The senator who takes the stricter view has a fine remark upon moral courage: it is this: He's truly valiant that can wisely suffer The worst that men can breathe; and make his wrongs And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart, To bring it into danger. He also finely says :— Quarrelling is valour misbegot, and came into the world There are two philosophers, historically renowned as such-traditional sages-whom Shakespeare has introduced among his delineations. I allude to Nestor and Ulysses. The latter always figures as "the wise Ulysses," "the prudent Ulysses," "the politic Ulysses"-the man of caution, experience, and knowledge: great in counsel, allsufficient in advice, unfailing in resource. He sustains his reputation on the dramatist's page; for from him flow choicest axioms and shrewdest comment, in teeming abundance. His brain devises wisdom; his mouth delivers wisdom; his deeds enact wisdom; he thinks, speaks, and practises wisdom. He plans the most artful schemes, and carries them out consummately. He was conceived, born, bred, and versed in strategy; and so conversant is he with human foibles, that he brings his strategy to bear with uniform success, in consequence of knowing how to adapt and administer it with due regard to this science in humanity. How adroitly does he play off the bullying Ajax upon the pride-swollen Achilles-turning the conceit of the one and the arrogance of the other to the fulfilment of his own views upon both With what skill he humours, cajoles, induces, or enforces! With what rapidity and acuteness he discerns the light and unstable character of Cressida; estimates the sterling worth of Troilus; recognises Diomed; or greets Hector! How justly he penetrates the characters and gauges the moral and intellectual dimensions of all those around him! He is as prompt and keen in observation of individuals as he is proficient in abstract acquaintance with mankind in general. There is not more pregnant eloquence in all the characters of Shakespeare than streams from his lips: he, indeed, hath a "mouth speaking great things "-a true Chrysostom (golden-mouth). As I have elsewhere cited the chief apothegms, or pointed sayings, of Ulysses, I shall here quote one of his finest and most philosophical speeches-that upon "Degree." It is a superb vindication of the merits-say, the virtue of order, and comprises the philosophy of rank, precedence, and appointed station, or “Degree.” He says: The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre, Insiture, course, proportion, season, form, And posts, like the commandment of a king, Sans check, to good and bad. But when the planets, In evil mixture, to disorder wander, What plagues, and what portents! what mutiny! What raging of the sea, shaking of earth, Commotion in the winds, frights, changes, horrors, Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixure! Oh! when Degree is shak'd, Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities, Strength should be lord of imbecility, And the rude son should strike his father dead: Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong (Between whose endless jar justice resides) Should lose their names, and so should justice, too. Then everything includes itself in power: And appetite, a universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power, And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon, Follows the choking: And this neglection of Degree it is, That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot, This speech is like an essay by Bacon put into metred language. No feature in Shakespeare's social character seems more distinct than that he was a quietist, and in all generals, a Conservative. He constantly gives indication of an abstract reverence for "time-honoured institutions." Imogen says, "Breach of custom is breach of all,” and examples to the same effect might be multiplied. He would have been the last man to have "removed his neighbour's landmark” -not altogether from the injustice of the act-although upon that ground he would have been consistent; but from an experienced sense of rule and order. His system of philosophy seems to have run undeviatingly on that tramway. Hamlet is the prince of poetical philosophers, moralising upon life, upon mankind, upon himself, out of the depths of his own intelligence; while Prospero is a princely philosopher, whose wisdom is chiefly derived from books and studious contemplation; but upon both these individual creations of our poet's brain I have dwelt at such length in my "Shakespeare Characters" as to preclude the necessity of here discussing the peculiarity of their several philosophic temperaments. As Hamlet is the greatest of all Shakespeare's moral philosophers, so is Iago the strongest of his im-moral philosophers. Iago's philosophy is the worst of immorality, for it holds that evil is power; that good is a nonentity; that vice is an acquisition; and that virtue is a thing to be avoided, or to be taken advantage of—in either case, a weakness. Here is some of this "reasoning wretch's" immoral philosophy. When, for instance, protesting he loves not the Moor, and Roderigo naturally enough observes, "I would not follow him then," Iago replies: O! sir, content you. Who, trimm'd in forms and usages of duty, And throwing but shows of service on their lords Do well thrive by them; and when they've lin'd their coats Again, when Michael Cassio, wrung with self-reproach, exclaims = |