These poetical notices by contem- to Samuel Daniel immediately afterporaries are highly interesting; and wards Drayton pays the following tribute And thou, the sweet Museus of these times, In 1592, Daniel had published his "Delia, contayning certayne Sonnets," and it went through two editions in the same year; so that if popularity were an objection with Drayton in Shakespeare's case, at all events, he was highly applauding two other poets whose effusions had met with great success. The same may be said of a third prolific writer of verses, Lodge, who was known by the assumed appellation of Golde (the letters of his name misplaced) or Goldey, and to whom Drayton, in the work before us, thus speaks And thou, my Goldey, which in summer dayes Hast feasted us with merry roundelayes, And when my Muse scarce able was to flye, Didst imp her wings with thy sweete Poesie. This looks as if Lodge, who was a practised writer in 1594, having commenced about the year 1580, had ac tually lent Drayton his aid so far as to correct and improve his verses, for in no other sense can we take the line Didst imp her wings with thy sweete Poesie. That Drayton and Lodge were intimate friends there can be no doubt, and we have seen that Lodge addressed a poetical epistle to him in 1595, which contains a distinct notice of "Endimion and Phoebe." Drayton follows up the quotations we have just made by this general address to the versifyers of his time : And you, the heyres of ever-living fame, The worthy titles of a Poet's name, Whose skill and rarest excellence is such As spitefull Envy never yet durst tuch; To your protection I this poem send, Which from proud Momus may my lines defend. Shakespeare was unquestionably one of "the heirs of ever-living fame," but he did not here obtain a separate note of admiration from Drayton, who winds up his "Endimion and Phoebe" by two-and-twenty lines of an apostrophe to the "Sweet Nymph of Ankor," the lady whom he celebrated in other productions. The body of this poem, of the externals of which we have hitherto spoken, fills forty-four pages, and Drayton treats the subject in the ordinary mythological manner, excepting that Diana, as it were to try the affections of the Shepherd, first visits him, not in her own person, but in the less awful form of one of her nymphs. Near the beginning we meet with an imitation of Spenser, although it is not so close as Spenser's imitation of Tasso, especially as it was rendered by Fairfax. Drayton's couplets are these The Nightingale, wood's Herauld of the Spring, It is not necessary to dwell on the resemblance which will occur to every reader who bears in mind (and who does not ?) the 12th canto of book ii. of "The Fairy Queen." A little further on we meet with a line which, even if other evidence had failed us, might have led to the detection of the author, although it is not conclusive : Simples fit beauty; fie on drugs and art! which is quoted with Drayton's name in "England's Parnassus," 1600, p. 19. Other passages, some of them of greater length, are nearly in the same pre dicament, as, for instance, the fol- Now black-brow'd Night, plac'd in her chaire of jet, In "England's Parnassus" this quotation has M. Dra. at the end of it, meaning, of course, as we now see (and as we might have guessed, even if the original from which it is taken had not been discovered) Michael Drayton. It is also a circumstance to be noted in reference to this poem that, although Drayton never reprinted it in the form in which it first appeared, he availed himself of various couplets A dainty smock of Cipresse, fine and thin, In Drayton's "Man in the Moon" the lines are given as follows:- Thorough the which her clear and dainty skin Several other passages in which Drayton has re-appropriated his own might be adduced; but if it had happened that nothing but the body of "Endimion and Phoebe" had been preserved, without any trace of authorship, and such corresponding lines had been found in "The Man in the Moon," the author would very unjustly have subjected himself to the charge of plagiarism. When, some years afterwards, he re-applied what he thought would answer his purpose in "Endimion and Phoebe," he must have believed that that production had effectually disappeared from public observation, and that he might therefore do what he liked with it. This consideration may lead to the opinion that "Endimion and Phoebe" was suppressed soon after it originally came out; but why it should have been suppressed, recollecting that few portions are inferior to any other of Drayton's performances, is an early literary mystery. The subsequent verses, where the author describes the growing passion of the young shepherd, unwilling at first to believe himself in love, is equal to anything of the kind Drayton has left behind him. He cannot love, and yet, forsooth, he will; He kist the flowers depressed with her feete, And swears from her they borrow'd all their sweet. It is very evident from the conclusion of the poem, that Drayton, when he wrote it, contemplated a continuation. After a dissertation upon the numbers three and nine, and the various objects in nature, art, and poetry included in or represented by them, the author says,— But to my tale I must returne againe. Amongst whose boughs the birds sweet Musick made, Was never pierst with Phoebus' burning eye; THE PROPER DIVISION OF "TWELFTH NIGHT" INTO ACTS. MR. URBAN, THE division of the acts in Twelfth Night is of less importance than in King Lear and Much ado about Nothing; for the movement of the piece is so light and rapid, and the several actions mix so naturally without perplexing or confusing each other, that if it were played from beginning to end without any pause at all the spectator would feel no harshness. Nevertheless, though the inter-acts might in this case be omitted altogether without injuring the dramatic effect, the effect is materially injured on two occasions by the interposition of them in the wrong place. At the end of the first act Malvolio is ordered to run after Cæsario with Olivia's ring; in the second scene of the second act he has but just overtaken him. "Were not you even now (he says) with the Countess Olivia ?" "Even now sir; (she answers) on a moderate pace I have since arrived but hither." Here therefore the pause is worse than useless. It impedes the action and turns a light and swift movement into a slow and heavy one. Again, at the end of the third act Sir Andrew Aguecheek runs after Cæsario (who has just left the stage) to beat him; Sir Toby and Fabian following to see the event. At the beginning of the fourth, they are all where they were. Sir Andrew's valour is still warm; he meets Sebastian, mistakes him for Cæsario, and strikes. Here again the pause is not merely unnecessary; it interrupts what was evidently meant for a continuous and rapid action, and so spoils the fun. The first of these defects might be sufficiently removed by continuing the first act to the end of what is now the second scene of the second. The other by continuing the third act to the end of what is now the first scene of the fourth. But such an arrangement would leave the fourth act so extremely short that it cannot be accepted for the true one. I have little doubt that the first act was meant to end with the fourth scene-the scene between the Duke and Viola : Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife. the second with Viola's soliloquy upon receiving Olivia's ring: Oh time, thou must untangle this, not I; It is too hard a knot for me to untie. The third might end where, according to the received arrangement, the second does; only that the underplot would in that case become rather too prominent, and the main action stand still too long. To avoid this, I would not have the curtain fall till after the second interview between Olivia and Viola, in which Olivia declares her passion : Yet come again; for thou perhaps may'st move The heart, which now abhors, to like his love. The fourth act may end where it now does, with the contract between Olivia and Sebastian.; and the fifth will remain as it is. I am not aware of any objection that can be made to this arrangement, or of any point which requires further explanation. If you will imagine the play properly represented (I say properly; for on the stage it is always so deformed with burlesque that no true judgment can be made of it from seeing it acted), with the divisions which I have proposed, I think you will feel that the arrangement recommends itself. Yours, &c. J. S. ANDREW COMBE.* LIFE OF DR. ANDREW COMBE was born in Edinburgh on the 27th October, 1797, the fifteenth child and the seventh son of parents in the middle class, respectable, honest, energetic, well-doing, and God-fearing people. His father was by trade a brewer. After going through the customary curriculum of the High School of Edinburgh, with the addition of two sessions at the College, he was apprenticed in 1812 to a general medical practitioner in Prince's-street. Up to this time he gave little indication of any peculiar talent, although there is a good deal to remind us of what has frequently been the youth of genius in the few incidents which are mentioned respecting him. He was a silent, selfwilled boy, not badly disposed, but living amongst his brothers and sisters in a state of proud unsympathising self-seclusion, enjoying his own little solitary jokes, and delighting to mystify those around him by a stubborn adherence to any silly determination once taken. In the presence of strangers he was taciturn and shy, kept down by the mauvaise honte seldom separable from his station in life when conjoined with imperfect education, and probably also overborne by a feeling of the superior acquirements of his elder brothers. In the family circle, it is worthy of remark, that Andrew and his now eminent elder brother George were customarily distinguished as "the Blockheads," a nickname given to them by their father, whose terminology in reference to his children seems to have been more fluent than complimentary. Parents in this respect are too often altogether in the dark. Isaac Barrow's father used to say, that if it pleased God to take from him any of his children he hoped it might be Isaac, who was the least promising of them all; and Sheridan's mother esteemed Richard Brinsley to be the dullest of her sons. The Life and Correspondence of Andrew Combe, M.D. by George Combe. 8vo. Edinb. 1850, Combe's first acquaintance with Phrenology was formed in 1815, during his apprenticeship. Having much leisure time, he availed himself of his father's subscription to a circulating library to procure novels and other entertaining books. One day searching at the library for a book, he lighted upon Spurzheim's Physiognomical System. The subject happened to be then the town talk, in consequence of the recent publication of a well-known condemnatory article by Dr. John Gordon, in the forty-ninth number of the Edinburgh Review. Combe took home the book, and he and his brother George laughed heartily at the grotesqueness of the plates and the oddity of some of the anecdotes. The book remained in the house a theme of ridicule for several days, and was then returned unread. This first reception of the doctrine of which they were afterwards to become the great missionaries was as unpromising and as little indicative of the future as their father's estimate of the powers of their intellect. But the time was at hand when both these first impressions were to be overturned. Dr. Spurzheim came to Edinburgh and delivered lectures in the face of ridicule and contempt. Neither of the brothers had any inclination to enter his lecture room, but it so happened that some days after the termination of the Doctor's first course of lectures, George Combe chanced to meet a young advocate of his acquaintance in the street, and was invited by him to go to his house to witness Dr. Spurzheim's dissection of a human brain. He went, not in faith, but out of curiosity. He was attracted, interested, and made a disciple. He sought the acquaintance of Dr. Spurzheim, thenceforward Phrenology was the constant theme of the family conversation and discussion, and in the autumn of 1817, Andrew Combe, having obtained his diploma from the Edinburgh College of Surgeons, proceeded to Paris in order to prosecute his studies in the hospitals of that capital, under the advice of Dr. Spurzheim. His removal from home seems at once to have called forth his dormant powers both of mind and heart. Strong affection was instantly developed for every member of the large family circle which he had left behind in Edinburgh; letters from home were watched for and longed for with ardent anxiety, and whenever he was not immersed in the studies of his profession, home and country were always uppermost in his thoughts. I sometimes, when not thinking, stretch "As my windows look to the north, my vision, to try if I can see Arthur's Seat or the Calton Hill, or in imagination I go to Livingston's yards, and hear my mother welcome me home; or to your (George's) house, and sit down at your right hand as usual, and then I see Mr. Smith dropping in to supper, and hear him laugh at the Doctor's long phiz; when in a moment the sight of the river Seine brings me back from my reverie." His attention to his professional studies was most exemplary surgery under Dupuytren, with anatomy, lectures on medical botany and chemistry, clinical lectures of Alibert, and courses of geology and physiology (the latter under Richerand), were all followed with perseverance and good success, although amongst fellow-students who picked his pocket, and were "such a set and held in such low estimation that he was almost ashamed to own that he belonged to the fraternity." His personal conduct in the gay French capital was regulated by true Scotish thrift and prudence, and in the freedom of French manners his taciturnity and mauvaise honte began to wear away. Finally, he entered upon the anatomy of the brain under Dr. Spurzheim, and, as might be expected, became a sincere believer in the doctrine of his friend, even although he attended, at the same time, the lectures of Esquirol on mental derangement, in which the opinions of Dr. Spurzheim were vigorously combated. After a journey into Switzerland and Italy, Andrew Combe returned to Scotland, making a short stay in London by the way. He arrived in Edinburgh in December 1819, eagerly intent upon the practice of his profession, and anxious to enter at once upon its active and useful duties; but the time was not yet. His frame was overgrown and weakly, his strength exhausted, and his bodily health deranged by travelling. He took up his quarters in a damp long-unoccupied room on the ground floor of a house situated in a low undrained part |