of sweet wants. His zeal in knightly accomplishments was
not entirely his own; it needed to be quickened and inflamed by praise
bestowed on others for excelling in them. Pure in sentiment, he knew the
honorable-minded, and could prize the rest which an upright spirit
tastes on the bosom of a friend. To a certain degree, he had learned to
discern and value the good and the beautiful in arts and sciences; the
mean, the vulgar was offensive to him: and if hatred could take root in
his tender soul, it was only so far as to make him properly despise the
false and changeful insects of a court, and play with them in easy
scorn. He was calm in his temper, artless in his conduct, neither
pleased with idleness nor too violently eager for employment. The
routine of a university he seemed to continue when at court. He
possessed more mirth of humor than of heart; he was a good companion,
pliant, courteous, discreet, and able to forget and forgive an injury,
yet never able to unite himself with those who overstept the limits of
the right, the good, and the becoming.

"When we read the piece again, you shall judge whether I am yet on the
proper track. I hope at least to bring forward passages that shall
support my opinion in its main points."

This delineation was received with warm approval; the company imagined
they foresaw that Hamlet's manner of proceeding might now be very
satisfactorily explained; they applauded this method of penetrating into
the spirit of a writer. Each of them proposed to himself to take up some
piece, and study it on these principles, and so unfold the author's
meaning ....

Loving Shakespeare as our friend did, he failed not to lead round the
conversation to the merits of that dramatist. Expressing, as he
entertained, the liveliest hopes of the new epoch which these exquisite
productions must form in Germany, he ere long introduced his 'Hamlet,'
who had busied him so much of late.

Serlo declared that he would long ago have played the piece, had this
been possible, and that he himself would willingly engage to act
Polonius. He added with a smile, "An Ophelia too will certainly turn up,
if we had but a Prince."

Wilhelm did not notice that Aurelia seemed a little hurt at her
brother's sarcasm. Our friend was in his proper vein, becoming copious
and didactic, expounding how he would have 'Hamlet' played. He
circumstantially delivered to his hearers the opinions we before saw him
busied with; taking all