"Can this be a madhouse?" he exclaimed, with an irrepressible shudder, as he heard a footstep traversing the floor of the stone hall to admit him. "So pleasant without, so

He started, for a janitor stood at the open portal: one of the keepers, no doubt.

"I wish to see Mr. Robert Willings, who, I believe, is an inmate here. At once," he cried, somewhat rudely.

The man grinned. "Are you the gentleman that was to bring the

certificate?"

"Certificate," said Sparkins to himself. "Alas, then, it is as I feared; at all events, it is clear that he is confined without any legal warrant.” So he added, aloud, "No, sir, but I demand to see him instanter." "Step this way, sir. Mr.

"Mr. Sparkins."

"Oh, ees, ees, this way, sir."

Sparkins was shown into a beautiful drawing-room, looking out upon the park, which sloped away from the house, showing the Gothic windows of a ruined church among a clump of trees that might, before the church was built, have been a Druid's grove, while the tall purple peak of Snowdon and his sombre companions filled in the background. He had no time to observe more, when Willings entered the room, unattended, but wonderfully altered! How changed from the Bob Willings of his old friendship! He could not have fancied that six short monthseven months of insanity, of raving madness, of fettered restraint, of close imprisonment-could have made such an alteration in a man!

"Behold your unhappy friend!" cried Bob, in a hollow voice, in whose tones there was, nevertheless, something of mockery, and an indication of its being assumed for the occasion.

"Here's going to be a scene," thought Sparkins, looking nervously for the bell-pull; but how well he looks-how stout-how happy! Poor fellow, it is always so; the body seems to thrive best without the mind!"

66

Willings," stammered Tom, holding out his left hand so as to keep his right disengaged for any emergency that might arise, "I'm glad to see you. But haven't you ahem!—a friend, or companion with

you

-

"What mean you, caitiff?" exclaimed Willings, in a tone and with a look of fury, real or assumed; "aha!" in the deepest tragedy tones, “do you think me-MAD?"

"Oh dear no-by no means-far from it," replied Sparkins, sidling, nevertheless, towards the door.

"You would escape by yonder portal! I see, and thus I thwart your base design!" And Willings planted his back against the door.

"Now, Willings," cried his friend, with an anxious look to the poker, "don't be unreasonable. You know you were always very partial to

me"

"And so I am still, old fellow," replied Bob, in his old voice; "you ask me if I have not a friend-yes, I have one, I trust, Thomas Sparkins by name-there, never mind the fire-irons; you'll have no occasion to use them, you see-but I want to tell you about the griffin and the basilisk; it's an old fable"

"Yes, I know it," remarked Sparkins, not yet entirely at his ease. "No, you don't know it," cried Willings, seizing him by the hand; you don't know it yet, though the story's as old as the hills. Why, I'll be hanged, Tom, if I don't think you still fancy I'm mad! No, no, the brain's right enough, but the heart is the heart," he continued, slapping his breast, "is gone!"

"Mere fancy, my dear Bob," said Sparkins.

"No such thing, sir," retorted Willings; "it's gone, sir-gone clean out of me! The basilisk has fascinated it away. There she goes !" he cried, drawing Tom to the window, and pointing to a graceful female figure tripping across the lawn; "you have seen her before-yes, yes, you have, Tom-don't you remember our first upset in Wales?"

Thus guided, Tom recognised the young lady who had been the inside passenger in the unlucky "Tourist" coach.

shall come and see at once,

"And the griffin," continued Bob, " you for to-morrow he will be my father-in-law! Ha, ha! do you see now? How I was chained to the spot-how I

But Sparkins was grasping his old friend's hand, and honest tears glistened in his eyes.

"Do you mean to say

-" he commenced.

"Yes, I do," replied Bob, interrupting him; "Doctor Griffith is the most worthy creature that ever existed. He cured me, and that angel of a daughter of his nursed me-none the less tenderly, perhaps, because she recognised me as having been serviceable to her in that unlucky coaching adventure of yours, when she was on her way to her cousin's, Lord Gronwy. Shame on me! I fell madly in love, and, worse still, let her know it, and her father too; and, instead of his kicking me out of the house, he took a great fancy to me, and gave his consent. She is his only child, and as he has a competence already, he was thinking of retiring from practice when I so opportunely turned up. That rascally coach was the Queen of Trumps, indeed, to me! I have seen a good deal of practice in the slate quarries here, have studied diligently, and next term am going up for my examination, and on my return he takes me into partnership, with a view of slipping quietly out of the profession himself."

For a brief moment a sad misgiving came into Tom's head that all this might be the distempered imagination of a mind diseased; but it was speedily dispelled by the appearance of the worthy doctor, who gave him a hearty welcome; and next day, and for a week after the happy nuptials, Tom was an honoured guest at Llanprydd.

He then returned to his dismal chambers in the Temple, to work at that calling which is never learned. Tom is now a rising member of the bar, but does not see his way clear enough at present to get settled; so his bachelor vacations are always spent at Llanprydd, and on the 29th of August in each year he may be regularly seen at the Euston-square station, with his luggage, two dolls and some toys, booking "through" to Bangor. And, as two little damsels sit upon his knee on the evening of the 30th, caressing him for his presents, and nursing their dolls, papa relates, with much exaggeration, the story of Tom's coaching achievements, and usually winds up, "Never mind, Tom; I had TWO UPSETS IN WALES, but they landed me safely on my feet at last!"

CAN the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Almost as easily, one inclines to think, as might so consummate an evil-doer as Oliver de Bois, all at once cease to do evil and learn to do well.

Conversions are great facts in the philosophy of human life, and facts are stubborn things. But there are conversions with a difference. Oliver's is a conversion with a vengeance. Considering what an ingrained scamp Shakspeare has made of him, in the early period of the play,— what a sordid, selfish, utterly graceless reprobate, of the meanest as well as most malignant type,-it is hard to suppose that Shakspeare was careful about logical development of character, or philosophical consistency, or psychological probability, or any such thing, when he suddenly wrought a miracle on Oliver, and made a perfect gentleman of that essential blackguard, the best good Christian of that transcendent rogue. Profound psychologist as Shakspeare was, he was also, in some respects, and on some occasions, a careless, easy-going playwright. He wrote not always to satisfy his own judgment, or the demands of the critically judicious, but could condescend to a coup de théâtre for the nonce, and huddle up a conclusion by becoming, in his own despite, for the theatre theatrical, of the stage stagey. Not that he designed or purposed, by any deliberate purpose or premeditated design, to tickle theatrical tastes at the expense of philosophical truth; but that he seems, once and again, to have been not careful to answer the critical in these matters, and to have dashed off a conclusion that he knew would go down at the Globe Theatre-better, perhaps, than something more soberly in accordance with human nature, of whose secrets he was intuitively master as none other has been, before or since.

True, that Oliver is the eldest son of Sir Rowland de Bois; and that, by the youngest son's saying, as against the eldest, he is thrice a villain, that says such a father begot villains. Yet, if it be villanous to practise against a brother's life, to hire a bravo that shall do him to death, and to coax and wheedle and incite that brother to meet his death more than half way; if it be villanous to plan and perpetrate this sort of thing, with alternate effusions of bullying bluster and lying slander, and showing himself an inborn rascal and inbred sneak at every turn; then is Sir Rowland's eldest son a villain, out-and-out, in-and-in.

But may not villains be converted, arch-villains too? Granted; and thank Heaven for that same. But the question is, whether a villain of this peculiarly dirty complexion is a credible subject for conversion. And if so, then again whether his conversion might, could, would, or should be looked for on such grounds, and by such a process, as mark Oliver's transformation in the Forest of Arden.

Ponder the spirit and letter of this elder brother's soliloquy, on dis

missing Charles, the duke's wrestler, with a commission to break Orlando's neck.

Having uttered his "Farewell, good Charles" in accents of bland patronage and almost affectionate unction-for he iterates his affable "Charles," and "Good Monsieur Charles," and "Good Charles," throughout the colloquy, or conspiracy, call it which you will,—the elder brother incontinently lapses into this delectable piece of self-communing : "Now will I stir this gamester: I hope, I shall see an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why, hates nothing more than he. Yet he's gentle; never schooled, and yet learned; full of noble device; of all sorts enchantingly beloved; and indeed, so much in the heart of the world, and especially of my own people, who best know him, that I am altogether misprised; but it shall not be so long; this wrestler shall clear all: nothing remains, but that I kindle the boy thither, which now I'll go about."* Here Oliver's chest-notes come out with ringing resonance, after the falsetto of his flourishes to Good Charles.

And now we are in Arden. It is the fourth act of the play, and Oliver is converted. Orlando has unwittingly saved his life, as he slept beneath an oak, "a wretched ragged man,”-saved him from a green and gilded snake that had wreathed itself about his neck; and from a lioness, with udders all drawn dry, that lay couching, head on ground, to await his waking.

This seen, Orlando did approach the man,

And found it was his brother, his eldest brother.
CELIA. O, I have heard him speak of that same brother;
And he did render him the most unnatural

OLIVER.

That lived 'mongst men.

And well he might do so,
For well I know he was unnatural.
Ros. But, to Orlando ;-Did he leave him there,
Food to the suck'd and hungry lioness?

OLI.

CEL.

Ros.

CEL.
OLI.

Twice did he turn his back, and purposed so:
But kindness, nobler ever than revenge,
And nature, stronger than his just occasion,
Made him give battle to the lioness,

Who quickly fell before him; in which hurtling,
From miserable slumber I awaked.

Are you his brother?

Was it you he rescued?

Was't you, that did so oft contrive to kill him?
'Twas I; but 'tis not I: I do not shame
To tell you what I was, since my conversion
So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.†

Willy-nilly, one is reminded of Don Juan in Molière, in the fifth act of his career of rascality. What, my son! exclaims the Don's incredulous, yet too credulous father, is it possible that a merciful Heaven has heard my prayers? Is it really true, what you tell me? Are you not misleading me by a false hope? Can I positively rely with something like confidence on the surprising novelty of such a conversion ?-Yes, the irreclaimable profligate assures the old gentleman. He, Juan, is a changed character-all since yesterday evening. By a sort of miracle Heaven has instantaneously converted him-opened his eyes and softened * As You Like It, Act I. Sc. 1. † Ibid., Act IV. Sc. 3.

his heart; and this worst of sinners is about to become the best of saints. "Oui, vous me voyez revenu de toutes mes erreurs; je ne suis plus le même d'hier au soir, et le ciel, tout d'un coup, a fait en moi un changemen qui va surprendre tout le monde. Il a touché mon âme et dessillé mes yeux; et je regarde avec horreur le long aveuglement où j'ai été, et les désordres criminels de la vie que j'ai menée."* What gaol-chaplain but has heard a paraphrase of all this, tedious as a tale twice fifty times told, -the ordinary stock in trade of ticket-of-leave men, and mouthed by old practitioners among them with emphasis and discretion?

That soliloquy of Oliver's, after parting with Charles the duke's wrestler, has been singled out by Coleridge as always appearing to him one of the most un-Shakspearian speeches in all the genuine works of our poet; yet he should be nothing surprised, he adds, and greatly pleased, to find it eventually a fresh beauty, as so often had happened to him with other supposed defects of great men.

Coleridge wrote thus in 1810. In 1818, he recurred to the speech in question, by remarking that although it is too venturous to charge a passage in Shakspeare with want of truth to nature, yet at first sight this speech of Oliver's expresses truths, which it seems almost impossible that any mind should so distinctly, so vividly, and so voluntarily, have presented to itself, in connexion with feelings and intentions so malignant, and so contrary to those which the qualities expressed would naturally have called forth. "But I dare not say that this seeming unnaturalness is not in the nature of an abused wilfulness, when united with a strong intellect. In such characters there is sometimes a gloomy self-gratification in making the absoluteness of the will (sit pro ratione voluntas!) evident to themselves by setting the reason and the conscience in full array against it."+

In entire contrast to the version, or maybe perversion, of Oliver's character, thus far taken in the present paper, is the estimate set upon him by so acute, and sagacious, and discerning a critic as Mr. Grant White. That gentleman remarks that Orlando's elder brother would be drawn by any but a great master of the human heart as an unmitigated villain; and that so indeed he is invariably misrepresented on the stage. Whereas, Mr. White descries in Oliver a very note-worthy instance of the nice and intuitive discrimination of Shakspeare in the delineation of a secondary character; and he sees in that speech of Oliver's which recognises Orlando's gentle and scholarly breeding and vast popularity, a wonderful skill in depicting the effect of moral excellence upon a man envious in temper and domineering in spirit, yet capable of appreciating that which is good in others, and even of desiring it for himself.

In fact, according to Shakspeare's Scholar, as this transatlantic critic styles himself, Oliver is not a mere brutal, grasping elder brother; but being somewhat morose and moody in his disposition, he first envied and then disliked the youth who, although his inferior in position, is so much in the heart of the world, and especially of his own people, that Oliver himself is altogether misprised. "The very moody disposition which makes him less popular than his younger brother, led him to nourish this envious dislike, till it became at length the bitter hate which he shows in *Le Festin de Pierre, Acte V. Sc. 1.

† Notes and Lectures upon Shakspeare, by S. T. Coleridge, vol. i. p. 118.