low heartlessness of his mother. He thinks all women are like his mother, and all men like Polonius or the King. He learns to regard the world as

"An unweeded garden,

That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in nature,

Possess it merely."

Unable to be one in such a world, and unwilling to die and enter the dark and unknown future, he cries in bitterness of spirit:—

"O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!"

But his better judgment, and his invincible will combine, and extort from him that unwilling sentence

"But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue!”

A man of such vague and mysterious speculations as was Hamlet, was just the one to meet a spirit from another world; he would give greater heed to such unearthly advice than a different person; and hence we see him, immediately after the interview between himself and the ghost of his father, swearing that he will "wipe away all trivial fond records " from the tablet of his memory, and revenge his "foul and most unnatural murder.' "" And now we ask, may not this fixed determination fully explain his subsequent actions throughout the play? It is true, they are almost inexplicable on any groundhis cruel language to his mother, and his harsh treatment of Ophelia. Some have supposed that he never really loved Ophelia; but is there so great an inconsistency, even here? It seems to me that he did really and devotedly love her; and that it was only his firm resolution to regard all the world a trifle, till he had avenged his father's murder, that prevented that love from showing itself continually. As it is, it occasionally bursts forth, and must convince us that it was there, deep and fervent. The love he cherished, too, was just such a love, as just such a man as Hamlet, would have felt towards just such a woman as Ophelia. To be sure, he was a man of great depth of thought, and it is true that he found no such corresponding depth in her; but the world had treated him roughly, and he had learned to value the heart far more than he did the head. Ophelia was all

heart, all confidence; and as naturally as man's reason, weary and worn, finds a home in the bosom of faith, so naturally did the restless intellect of Hamlet, seek repose in the mild, warm heart of Ophelia.

It has been questioned by some, whether Hamlet's madness was real or feigned. Might it not have been partly both? He had passed through scenes sufficient to dethrone the reason of any man; but he still displays the keenest judgment in his management of the King. Polonius insisted that he was mad, and cited, as proof, the love letter to Ophelia :

"Doubt thou, the stars are fire;
Doubt, that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt, I love."

And still it is very questionable whether the portfolio of many a New England maiden could not afford us professions as strong and glowingand that, too, perhaps from some who will read this; and still we are not all mad! If his madness was real, it was reasonable; if feigned, it was faultless.

We

But in what did this faultlessness consist? It consisted in its being perfectly life-like. This same perfection, too, is displayed in all the other characters. The remorse of the King; the heartlessness of the Queen; the subtlety of Polonius; the heavenly purity of Ophelia; and the manly bearing of Hamlet, are all pictured with a vividness which convinces us at once that it is Shakesperian. lay aside the play, as we would turn from a scene in real life, with our sympathies enlisted in some one of the characters. They were, to be sure, only figments of the author's imagination; but they might just as well have been characters in real life, living, breathing, acting, men and women. We know it, and feel it, and are sure that none but Shakespeare could fully make them seem so. His versatile talent mingled the joys and sorrows; the theory and practice; the poetry and prose of real life in ideal character. He seems to have been many men in one: a sort of embodiment of England's great geniuses. She has had her philosophers, her logicians, and her poets: but she has had a practical philosopher, a subtle logician, and nature's own poet all in Shakespeare. She may cherish with undying ardor the memory of Bacon, Burke, Byron and Milton: but the perfect practicality of Bacon, the intricate reasonings of Burke, the bound

less imagination of Byron, and the moral sublimity of Milton, all center, and form a part of that monument before which we all love to bow-the mind of William Shakespeare.

EDITORS' TABLE.

We hold that he who has written a good Editors' Table, has done something for that little community in which he lives, that ought not to be forgotten. "Tis not a treasure for to-day alone, but it shall cheer the hours of after life, and awaken a thousand recollections of classmates and college friends, that shall make green spots in our declining years. We live, fellow student, in a world of our own,-one that we do not prize enough, perhaps, as we hurry through it, and one that those without can never understand. Smile, ye who choose, at college foibles, and magnify our freaks and follies into sins; but where will you find truer hearts and warmer friendships? Who, then, shall deny us a kindly word together?

Last night we got the Feb. No. of the Yale Literary; and a godsend it was to us. We sat right down, pulled off our coat and boots, and commencing at the last page, turned back till we came to the beginning of the Editors' Table. "HERE we are, courteous Reader! This 'getting out' a YALE LIT. is not what's cracked up to be. We can assure you, that so far as our experience goes, it is 'bubble, bubble, toil and trouble'." Give us your hand, brother Editor. Substitute INDIC. for YALE LIT., and we'll swear to every word of it. "But the the most difficult part of the labor is in writing the editorial lucubrations.” Better still! We would like to be hand and glove with that man. Depend upon it, he has a soul as is not a gizzard.

You may think, indulgent reader, we are getting over-enthusiastic: but should you ever, through the unmerited kindness of your classmates (like ourself), attain to the office of editor, you will be prepared to appreciate a sympathizing word from 'the profession.'-Our friend Magnus asked us to a ride this afternoon, (and as you may not be aware of the fact, we will state that the afternoon is Wednesday, and a most glorious one, too,) but we resisted all the enticements of maple sugar and our sweet-heart, (and we have got one,) and strenuously persisted in staying at home to write our Table-quod vide. "Whew! Sticks!" growled M., "take an afternoon to write an Editors' Table! I could write one in just about two minutes." We wish, man, you had hold of the pen. We should like to witness the contortions of your expansive countenance. If the first joke you attempted to perpetrate, didn't agitate your system worse than any fit of the cramp you ever experienced in your life, we'll make a ‘sacrament' of all our old boots to that colored man, familiarly known by the name of Sambo. (Readers are requested to take particular notice of jokes.) We used to entertain very much such ideas ourself, while we were innocent of all expectations of our present exaltation, and consequently of all aspirations therefor, but we have long since abandoned them. However, we don't intend to des

pair of ourself; above all we don't mean to let our modesty cramp our genius. We presume you have all heard of that daring young man, who, for the first time in his life, asked a lusty specimen of virginity, if he might "see her hum.” The incident occurred, if we remember right, somewhere down onCape Cod; and is said to be well authenticated. The first half of the walk passed in stiff, unbroken silence. The young man, seeing that things were getting desperate, determined to break the ice-"Quite mooney out to-night." Yes, very," and both relapsed again. Now we hold this in several respects to be a model conversation. It certainly combined brevity and truth,-according to Whately and St. Paul, two cardinal virtues. But we beg to be excused from being quite so reserved in our editorial gossip. The burden of what we say, shall be, perhaps, more like the contents of the 'notion' shop out West:

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Pig-yokes and Catechisms,

Bibles and Brandy,

Baxter's Dying thoughts and Putty,

For sale by Caleb Snooks."

Or like a voluntary on the College Organ,—a succession of pretty good accords (generally), but rather destitute of any idea as a whole; (relatively, however, we trust not quite so long); a resemblance, too, may be detected between our attempts at wit, and the fancy interludes on the above named instrument.

Did you ever know so quiet a term at old Amherst? Those first six weeks were terrible. The memory of that dark rhetorical room haunts us still. We believe that if a man would ever be justifiable in committing suicide, it would be the first week of winter term. There is that cold room, the walls sparkling with frost, and that water pail all froze up, and that no woodpile, and those icy sheets,-wah! it makes us shiver to think of it. For a man, however, who has got fairly seasoned down with misery and the blues, it is a species of not very benevolent amusement, to see the teachers come back. And it must be confessed, for a fellow who has been the embodiment of literature and philosophy for the whole of some hill town, who has sat in the minister's pew all winter, and flirted with the minister's daughter, and been the pet of all the villlage old maids, and the passion of all the village young maids, and thundered in the village lyceum, and who has just parted with that 'first class' of girls with a kiss on each cheek and a tear in each eye,-to come back and be kicked around by a set of ruffian male wretches, is particularly shocking to the tenderer sensibilities. The man who has been the biggest toad in the puddle,' quite likely will have to be a very small toad. (In all this, we speak from experience. Didn't we teach four weeks and a half, last vacation?) But we have observed it is particularly galling to the feelings of the Freshman, who (it is a lamentable fact) cuts just as big a figure out of town, as the Senior. It takes several days for him to revive the fact in his memory that there are upper classes. There is our friend Greenadab, who (they say) has been moving heaven and earth up in the suburbs of Shutesbury-the fellow actually looked straight up at the monitor twice, the first day, and didn't wink.

We wonder how many of our brother pedagogues have got-engaged! We

believe this to be the lues mentis of schoolmasters. The character of the student has just enough of the devil in it to attract the sex, and before the victim is aware of it, he finds himself irretrievably tied for life to the flower' of the village. The poor fellow discovers too late that the Fair, whom he had believed to be the divinest being in existence as well as the belle of her own town, is rather a cipher in more civilized society; but its did, and can't be undid. Our senior friends, we suppose, are most of them hopelessly yoked; but for the benefit of the Freshmen, we are going to tell a yarn we heard from an alumnus. When our Alma Mater was in her swaddling clothes, and good old Prex used to get the students together, and advise them on keeping their faces clean and blacking their boots, &c., he used to touch now and then on matrimonials. My young friends," he would say, "women is dangerous. In the lump, they are to be kept clear of. However, keep your eyes peeled, and if you come across a virtuous woman to your taste, why, just blaze her." The force of these remarks lies "in the application on 'em."

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We had contemplated saying innumerable other flat things on sundry subjects; but the printer says there's room only for a word to our EXCHANGES.

The YALE LIT. comes regularly, and always receives a right cordial welcome. The NASSAU LIT. MAG. (Mar.) is this moment laid on our table. Pardon our inadvertence, brothers of the JEFFERSON MONUMENT MAG. (Univer. of Va.) in omitting to acknowledge the receipt of four Nos. of your periodical-the last, the Jan. Among a goodly assortment of articles, we have noticed a very just Review of "Washington and his Generals," by that most execrable jackanapes of a writer, Geo. Lippard. We return our thanks to the "CHRISTIAN REGISTER," for exchanging with us. Although we differ from the doctrinal views of the editors, we believe it to be the best conducted religious sheet in New England. The "HOME JOURNAL," will be pleased to accept a like tribute of thanks. The "GREENFIELD DEMOCRAT," is a sweet morsel to the political appetite of our brother Cassius. It is down with a terrible vengeance upon the Democrats for their defection from "the coalition "-and that reminds us of a story we heard the other day. Some hundred years ago, when the laws were different from those we live under, a couple of scamps were likely to get into difficulty with the government, in consequence of a propensity to thieve, which they in company had indulged to excess. One of them turned States' evidence against the other, who was accordingly tied up to the post in the public square, and whipped. The fellow bore it with a good deal of fortitude. When he had received the full penalty of the law, and satisfied himself that he had a sound bone or two left in his skin,-" Warl!" said he, "that's just right! Any man that'll have anything to do with such a rascal as that was, ought to be whipped!" Free Soil and Democracy, help yourselves! Several Nos. of "THE COLLEGIAN" (Wash. Coll. Pa.,) have been received. It is conducted in part by the members of some Female Sem., who write decidedly the most sensible pieces.

Our limits forbade our publishing one or two pieces of poetry which were very kindly handed us.

The sickness of the printer must excuse our late appearance.