In the autumn of last year a communication was made to His Eminence the late Cardinal Wiseman by H. Bence Jones, Esq., M. D., as Secretary of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, requesting him to deliver a lecture before that society. The Cardinal, with the prompt kindness usual to him, at once assented. The Shakespeare Tercentenary seemed to prescribe the subject, which His Eminence therefore selected. The following pages were dictated by him in the last weeks of his life. The latter part was taken down in the beginning of Janua ry; the earlier part was dictated on Saturday the fourteenth of that month. It was his last intellectual exertion, and it overtaxed his failing strength. The Rev. Dr. Clifford, Chaplain to the Hospital of S. John and S. Elizabeth, who acted as his amanuensis, states, from the lips of His Eminence, that the matter contained in these pages is the beginning and the ending of what he intended to deliver. We have, therefore, only a fragment of a whole which was never completed except in the author's mind. Dr. Clifford adds: "I have no recollection of the Cardinal's telling me the manner in which he intended filling up the hiatus, but the day before his illness he said, I shall have no more real work, for I have every sentence that I am going to dictate already in my mind; it is only a question of time now. I know word for word what I shall say."" It is needless to state that no part of this lecture has had the benefit of the author's revision. It may be asked: If then it be no more than a fragment, why publish it? Is 3925 988 793516 (RECAP) it just to the literary reputation of so great a name? The lecture is now published for the following reasons. First, because we believe that the beauty of these pages will abundantly justify their publication. Fragmentary as they are, they are the fragments of such a whole as could hardly come from any other hand. There is in this lecture an exquisite refinement of thought, and a singular gracefulness of intellectual expression, together with a beauty of outline which it would be difficult to equal. If the work be imperfect, so, as he tells us in his opening paragraphs, were the last labors of others who have gone before him. There is but one end to the greatest and the noblest minds. And happy are they who preserve their power, exuberance, and freshness so vividly even to the last. Secondly, this lecture is committed to the press because we believe he would have desired us to give to the people of England the last work he undertook-even when life and strength were failing--for their sake. It was his last effort in their service; his last endeavor for their rational pleasure. Finally, so wide-spread a desire to possess this lecture has been expressed by His Eminence's friends, and by many others not personally related to him, that we do not feel justified in disappointing a wish which arises from affection and veneration for his person. H. E. MANNING. WILLIAM THOMPSON. ST. MARY'S, Bayswater, March, 1865. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. BY HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL WISEMAN, I. There have been some men in the world's history-and they are necessarily few-who by their deaths have deprived mankind of the power to do justice to their merits, in those particular spheres of excellence in which they had been pre-eminent. When the "immortal" Raphael for the last time laid down his palette, still moist with the brilliant colors which he had spread upon his unfinished masterpiece, destined to be exposed to admiration above his bier, he left none behind him who could worthily depict and transmit to us his beautiful lineaments: so that posterity has had to seek in his own paintings, among the guards at a sepulchre, or among the youthful disciples in an ancient school,some figure which may be considered as representing himself. When his mighty rival, Michaelangelo, cast down that massive chisel which no one after him was worthy or able to wield,none survived him who could venture to repeat in marble the rugged grandeur of his countenance; but we imagine that we can trace in the head of some unfinished satyr, or in the sublime countenance of his Moses, the natural or the idealized type from which he drew his stern and noble inspirations. And, to turn to another great art, when |