ill-bound or ill-printed book upon her table. Book-makers too often neglect the "drapery" of their "compositions," from an inordinate vanity about the "figure;" but they should remember that books are not always ordered to be read, but (like the Petition of the Glasgow Weavers,)" to lie upon the table!"

The last subject to which I would call the attention of the craft, is the process of "puffing." When a book is nearly ready for publication, the "discerning" public is prepared for it by this most important process; some of the common forms of which I transcribe from memory (for the benefit of the trade) out of the daily papers.

"We understand that the talented author of has in the press a most startling work of fiction, the leading incidents of which are said to be founded on the domestic circumstances of a certain noble family, residing not a hundred miles from St. James's Square." Or thus:"The novel of —, shortly about to be published, it is said, will contain characters that will be recognised in certain high circles as drawn from the life; and that amongst other portraits will be found those of the once famous Colonel Lord H- G——, and a celebrated divorcée of high rank."

If the book is to be published anonymously, certain dark hints may be thrown out, as to its probable author, in manner and form following:"It is rumoured," in the Clubs, "that the novel of shortly about to be published, is from the pen of a certain noble Lord, holding a high office in the present government; or less suspiciously, thus:"We are authorized to state that the novel of

pen of a certain noble lord, a member of the cabinet."

is not from the

In laying down the foregoing rules and principles of the art of bookmaking, I trust I have contributed in some degree to the stock of "Useful Knowledge," and in these utilitarian times my efforts will, no doubt, be duly appreciated. I feel I have by no means done justice to my subject; but if I have succeeded in merely suggesting the possibility of elevating book-making to the rank and dignity of a science, my end is fully answered; and I leave it to abler writers to carry out the principles I have laid down.

Perhaps, by applying the principle of the "division of labour" to this interesting branch of the national industry, the next generation may see books "composed," printed, bound, and published, by the hands now employed upon a pin, a saddle, or a watch!

F. J. F.

470

SHAKSPEARE PAPERS. No. VII.

POLONIUS.

Custom exacts

THIS is a character which few actors like to perform. that it must be represented as a comic part, and yet it wants the stimulants which cheer a comedian. There are no situations or reflections to call forth peals of laughter, or even fill the audience with ordinary merriment. He is played as a buffoon; but the text does not afford the adjuncts of buffoonery; and, in order to supply their place, antic gesture and grimace are resorted to by the puzzled performer. It is indeed no wonder that he should be puzzled, for he is endeavouring to do what the author never intended. It would not be more impossibleif we be allowed to fancy degrees of impossibility-to perform the pantomimic Pantaloon seriously in the manner of King Lear, than to make the impression which Shakspeare desired that Polonius should make, if he be exhibited in the style of the dotard of Spanish or Italian comedy, or the Sganarelle whom Moliere has borrowed from them. There is some resemblance in Lord Ogleby; but we cannot persuade ourselves to think that George Colman, elder or younger, could have written any part in Hamlet. I doubt not that both thought their own comedies far superior.

Polonius is a ceremonious courtier; and no more ridicule attaches to him than what attaches to lords of the bedchamber, or chamberlains, or other such furniture of a court in general. It is deemed necessary that kings should be hedged not only by the divinity of their regal honours, but by the more corporal entrenchments of officers of state. In fact it must be so; and in every history of the world we find these functionaries, differing only in name. We know not the internal arrangements of the palaces of the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before there reigned any king over the children of Israel;* but we may be sure that Bela the son of Beor, and Hadad the son of Bedad, who sinote Midian in the field of Moab, and Saul of Rehoboth by the river, and Hadar, whose city was Pau, and whose wife was Matred, the daughter of Mezahab, and the other princes of the house of Esau, who appear for a brief moment in the earliest record of human affairs in the book of the world's generation, but to die and make way for others to reign in their stead, had courtiers around them, to whom were allotted duties in fashion different, in spirit the same as those which were performed by the courtly officials of the Byzantium emperors, the togaed comites of the Cæsars, the ruffled and periwigged gens de la cour of the Grand Monarque, or the gold sticks and silver sticks of Queen Victoria; and performed, no doubt, for the same reason-for that con-si-de-ra-ti-on, which, whether in the shape of flocks and herds, or land and beeves, or the more easily managed commodity of shekels and sovereigns, when the secret of "a circulating medium" was discovered, has ever been the stimulants of the general herd attracted to a court. It would be indeed travelling far

* Gen. xxxvi. 31-39.

from the purpose of these papers to talk morals or politics on such a subject; but there can be no harm in saying that, in times of difficulty or danger, when "uneasy is the head that wears a crown," it is not to them its wearer must look for ease or assistance. The dog loves the master-the cat loves the house. The nobler animal who couches not in the drawing-room, and is not caressed and pampered with soothing and officious hand, but who guards the dwelling, and follows to the field, may, if treated with kindness, be depended upon to the last. He will die at the feet of a master returning in the twentieth year-will couch upon his grave-will seize his murderer by the throat. The mere domestic creature, following her instinct, will cling to the house through every change of dynasty, ready to welcome with gratulatory purr whatever hand may rub down her glossy coat, and supply her with customary food, even if that hand should be reeking with the blood of the fallen owner of the mansion in which she had been reared. But the cat is not to be blamed. She acts as nature meant her to act and what nature is to a cat, habit is to a courtier. Nothing can be more improbable than that the Queen should bother herself-I talk Hibernically-with reading these papers;-nothing is more certain than that, if she does, she will not believe a word of what I am saying. Yet if she lives to the age of the great lady in whose days the creator of Polonius flourished,-aud may she so live, equally glorious in her character of Queen, and far happier in her character of woman!-she may be inclined to think that I am right, and that the profession of etiquette, well calculated as it may be to dignify the ceremonial of state, is not to be confounded with the loyalty which inspires

"The manly hearts to guard a throne."

But it is perfectly natural that the professors of the science should set a high value upon it. The chamberlain who gave up the monarchy as lost when he saw M. Roland enter the presence of the king with ribbons in his shoes* was perfectly sincere. It was no part of his business to inquire farther than what he saw before him; he had not to ask into the remoter causes which gave M. Roland the courage or the presumption to violate the laws of court decorum, which the staff-bearer had throughout his life considered to be as steadfast as the laws which regulated the motions of the earth, if indeed he ever condescended to think on such uncourtly trifles. It is easy to laugh at this chamberlain; but he was substantially right. The kingdom of the doomed Louis did not depend upon stockings or buckles; but it depended upon the belief that the person of the king was inviolate, and the breach of decorum was but the first step leading to the scaffold. The clown, who troubles not himself with astronomical, meteorological, or chemical studies, knows well that har. vest is to follow seed-time, and prognosticates with unerring certainty that the grain which he is scattering in the ground is to ripen into a golden ear; so our court functionary, who had never dreamt of political speculations, never consulted any philosophical observerslooked not beyond the circle of the Tuilleries, and would not have understood a single word of Mr. Carlyle's eloquent theories-saw in this one grain of disrespect the coming crop of destruction. I know

"Roland the Just with ribbons in his shoes."

Anti-Jacobin.

nothing of his after history-perhaps he emigrated with others of his order; but if he did not originally commit that false step,-and I hope for the honour of so shrewd an observer that he did not-[for what had he to do with chivalry ?]-I have little doubt that he found his fitting place among the gold-laced suite of the Emperor,-welcomed with well-trained bows the return of Louis the Eighteenth,-served Charles the tenth with appropriate ceremony, and is, I trust, now in his old age discussing the glories of the powdered and rapiered circle of Louis Quinze, beneath the approving smile of Louis Philippe.

Of this race was Polonius. Let not the abstracted sage or the smug sneerer imagine that it was a race of fools. In such courts as those which Shakspeare contemplated they were far from it indeed. They had been bred in camps and colleges-[Polonius had been at the University, where in the dramatic entertainments, usual in the seats of learning in Shakspeare's time, he was selected to perform no less a part than that of Julius Cæsar]-had acquired the polish of courts, if, indeed, we should not rather say they created it-mingled habitually among the great and the witty, the graceful and the wise; -but, from perpetually confining themselves to one class of society, and that the most artificial of all classes, and deeming all other interests depending upon that of their masters, as they saw all other persons bowing in subservience before them, it is no wonder that their world was bounded by the precincts of a palace, and their wisdom or ability exerted, as everybody's ability or wisdom is exerted, to shine or thrive by the arts which contributed to make way in the world wherein their lot was cast. Their sphere of courtly duty made them appear to be frivolous;-it does not follow that they were so in life elsewhere.

This distinction is admirably kept up in Polonius. In the presence he is all ceremony and etiquette. He will not open the business of Hamlet's addresses to his daughter, while the ambassadors from Norway are waiting an audience.

"Give first admittance to the ambassadours,

Thy news shall be the fruit of that great feast."

Who could be better qualified to introduce them with due honours? The king appoints him to the duty at once:

"Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in."

He performs his courtly mission, and waits its conclusion before he commences to speak on what concerns his daughter.

"This business is well ended;"

and now for a speech.

"My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,

Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time.”

This is the exordium. We now proceed to the propositio.

"Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,

And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,

I will be brief: Your noble son is mad."

The narratio should follow; but a parenthetical remark cannot be resisted.