The Astrology Of Shakespeare.

brained " Magician " with the mode of thought natural to the Mars-man , who stands in awe of nothing , either ghostly or bodily , and lacks patience to listen ; for Sometimes he angers me With telling me of moldwarp and the ant , Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies , And of a dragon and a finless fish

, A clip-Avinged griffin and a moulten raven , A couching lion and a rampant cat , And such a deal of skimble skamble stuff As puts me from my faith . I'll tell you what ; He held me last night at least nine hours In reckoning up the several devils' names That were his lackeys ; I cried " hum , " and " Avell , go to , " But mark'd him not a word .

The bastard son of the Earl of Gloucester , in his fathers absence , ridicules mightil y the latter ' s belief in astrology , but we have , in this instance , a believer in nothing , the greatest Adllain of the play p laced as a set-off to the virtues of the good Credulous father ! and a brother noble , Whose nature is so far from doing harms , That he suspects none : on whose foolish honesty My practices ride easy .

As the p lanets have the greatest influence upon the weather , it is noticeable how Shakespeare , carrying further the popular train of thought , makes the heavens to sympathise with the fates of his characters . As an instance of this , we may mark the analogy between the stormy heavens in " King Lear " and the war of passsions in the breast of the wronged , miserable old man . Again , the sudden storm of unreasoning jealousy in the soul of Leontes , in the " "Winter ' s Tale , " has its counterpart in the fierce tempest which raged

when Perdita , by her unnatural father ' s order , was abandoned on the sea-coast by Antigonus , with— Farewell ! The day froAvns more and more ; thou'rt like to have A lullaby too rough .- I never saw The heavens so dim by clay .

Sad Hermione accounts for the madness of her lord with the thought—There ' s some ill planet reigns . I must be patient till the heavens look With an aspect more favourable . The power of p lanetary directions or transits , with respect to the zodiacal positions in a nativity , are frequently alluded to . The central thought in " The Tempest" is placed before us in the words of Prospero to

Miranda—By my prescience , I find my zenith doth depend upon A most- auspicious star ; Avhose influence If now I court not , but omit , my fortunes Will ever after droop . Prospero , conscious of this favourable aspect of the heavens , seizes on the fortunate moment to work his spells , ancl by aid of his magic art , rouses the

storm . The argosy of courtiers—by a happy accident near at hand—is wrecked on the island , and the way is prepared for Prospero ' s return to his lost estate . We may compare with this the Avords which Shakespeare attributes to Brutus . There is a tide in the affairs of men , Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune ; Omitted , all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries .