Boccaccio's, for it is told with the utmost simplicity, sweetness, and pathos. But SHAKSPEARE has, we think, improved it by elaborating the incidents, and by adorning it with new creations, and developing the individual beauty of the heroine. Indeed, it could not be otherwise. The truth is, that SHAKSPEARE'S genius consecrates everything it touches. He carries the world along with him, and whenever an object pleases him, he gives it a new life and beauty. A power mightier than Nature's seems ever to be unbosoming its secrets to him. It is impossible to describe his soft and delicate fancy, or the breadth and clearness of his vision; for he sees all things as far as angels' ken. Everything about him is subtle, wonderful, and magical. He gives even "to airy nothing a local habitation and a name." All his creations are symbols of truth and moral beauty. They address every feeling of humanity, every sentiment and passion. He bestows grace and dignity upon the most common-place subjects, and they become ever afterward objects of delight and reverence.

His female characters have an irresistible charm about them for which we may look in vain for a parallel elsewhere. His Helena is a pure effusion of genius. She is the very apotheosis of womanhood. She is not only a maid, too virtuous for the contempt of empire, but the most perfect ideal of a wife. Our thoughts refer to her again and again, and each time with increasing admiration and delight. The depth and intensity of her love, and the refinement and purity of her principles, vibrate with every breeze of feeling. Her gentleness and resolution are almost equal to her beauty, and she is described as one

"Whose beauty did astonish the survey

Of richest eyes, whose words all ears took captive ;
Whose dear perfection hearts that scorned to serve,
Humbly called mistress."

She is placed in the most trying situation, and surrounded

In her the ordi

by the most degrading circumstances.
nary rules of courtship are reversed. She is compelled to
appear herself as a wooer, and to court her lover both as
a maid and as a wife, and yet she does not violate a single
law of modesty or propriety. Her combination of intellect
and passion is truly wonderful. Her self-possession never
deserts her. She is ever looking forward to a bright and
happy future. She seems to hope even against hope, and
to believe when faith seems fatuity. What could be finer
than her description of her love for Bertram, who, by the
laws of society, is placed above her in social position?-
"My imagination

Carries no favor in it but my Bertram's;
I am undone there is no loving, none,
If Bertram be away. It were all one
That I should love a b.ight particular star,
And think to wed it, he is so above me;
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted not in his sphere?
Th' ambition in my love thus plagues itself;
The hind that would be mated by the lion
Must die for love."

Poor Helena, true to the instincts of her sex, has not the slightest idea of her own merit. When she cannot win her lord to look upon her, she thinks it is because she is unworthy of him.

Her unwearied patience is rewarded at last,

"For time will bring on summer,

When briars shall have leaves as well as thorns,

And be as sweet as sharp."

It has been well questioned whether Bertram deserves her unconquerable faith of affection, her deep and lasting attachment. Dr. Johnson describes him as a man noble without generosity, and young without truth.

He con

demns him, as well as he may, for sneaking home to a second marriage, and defending himself with falsehood against his wife's accusations. His foolish pride of birth seems to be his greatest fault. His compulsory marriage, "being compelled to submit his fancy to other eyes,” when the ardor and impetuosity of his youth longed for freedom. and frowned upon restraint, should, we think, in some measure, extenuate his conduct. Besides, his faults seem absolutely necessary in order to develop Helena's intensity of passion, and strength and firmness of character. It is impossible to help loving the Countess, Helena's guardian. She is a living and an essential truth. Mrs. Jameson says, "She is like one of Titian's old women, who still amid their wrinkles remind us of that soul of beauty and sensibility which must have animated them when young." She is a perfect mistress of her own thoughts. The rose of her spirit is kept bright and beautiful to the last. Age cannot dull her sensibilities, or curb even for a moment the sweet and gentle, and kind and generous, and pure and holy emotions of her soul. The purity of her principles and her self-forgetting love are enough to evoke the admiration of the angels. She is never unmindful of the lessons of experience, but ever cherishes them as sacred treasures. How beautiful are her reflections when she discovers the pangs of Helena's unrequited love! She says:

"Even so was it with me when I was young.

Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong;

It is the show and seal of Nature's truth,

When love's strong passion is impressed in youth.”

The witty and eccentric Lord Lafeu is a very charming character.

Every one has the utmost contempt for Parolles. His

impudence and poltroonery are disgusting in the extreme. "His soul is in his clothes." He is, in every sense of the word, a contemptible "pronoun" of a man. Critics may "should

well marvel that this "lump of counterfeit ore know what he is and be what he is." "He is created on purpose for men to breathe themselves upon." He is " a notorious liar," "a great way fool," and "solely a coward ;' and yet the elements of wit and humor are so mixed in him that he furnishes us with an inexhaustible vein of mirth and laughter.

DREAMING.

THE subject of Dreaming is always interesting. It is too deeply interwoven with philosophy and superstition to be otherwise than interesting. Dugald Stewart defined Dreaming to be a series of thoughts not under command of reason, or that condition in which we have nearly or quite lost all volition over bodily organs, but in which those mental powers retain a partial degree of activity.

It has been said that though the power of volition does not seem to be altogether absent in sleep, the will appears to lose its influence over the faculties of the mind and members of the body, which during our waking hours are subject to its authority.

In sleep we seem to experience every kind of emotion, and at times our reasoning powers appear to be as clear as the noonday sun. Spurzheim and Gall, in their Physiognomical system, affirm, in the most positive manner, that we often reason better when dreaming than when awake. Hazlitt, however, makes a good deal of sport of this theory, and calls it a fine style of German mysticism.

It is generally supposed that dreaming is an evidence of imperfect sleep, but it is possible that the state of sleep is always accompanied by dreams, though we may not be able to remember them.

At a dinner party we heard one of the most distinguished authors in the country remark, that if he ever dreamed in