For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
   The oppressor’s wrong, the poor man’s contumely,
   The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
   The insolence of office, and the spurns
   That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
   When he himself might his quietus make
   With a bare bodkin.  Who would fardels bear
   To groan and sweat under a weary life,
   But that the dread of something after death,
   The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
   No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
   And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
   Than fly to others that we know not of? 
   Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
   And thus the native hue of resolution
   Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought: 
   And enterprises of great weight and moment
   With this regard their currents turn awry,
   And lose the name of action—­”

My version of it runs thus:—­

   “Demeure, il faut choisir et passer a l’instant
   De la vie, a la mort, ou de l’etre au neant. 
   Dieux cruels, s’il en est, eclairez mon courage. 
   Faut-il vieillir courbe sous la main qui m’outrage,
   Supporter, ou finir mon malheur et mon sort? 
   Qui suis je?  Qui m’arrete! et qu’est-ce que la mort? 
   C’est la fin de nos maux, c’est mon unique asile
   Apres de longs transports, c’est un sommeil tranquile. 
   On s’endort, et tout meurt, mais un affreux reveil
   Doit succeder peut etre aux douceurs du sommeil! 
   On nous menace, on dit que cette courte vie,
   De tourmens eternels est aussi-tot suivie. 
   O mort! moment fatal! affreuse eternite! 
   Tout coeur a ton seul nom se glace epouvante. 
   Eh! qui pourroit sans toi supporter cette vie,
   De nos pretres menteurs benir l’hypocrisie: 
   D’une indigne maitresse encenser les erreurs,
   Ramper sous un ministre, adorer ses hauteurs;
   Et montrer les langueurs de son ame abattue,
   A des amis ingrats qui detournent la vue? 
   La mort seroit trop douce en ces extremitez,
   Mais le scrupule parle, et nous crie, arretez;
   Il defend a nos mains cet heureux homicide
   Et d’un heros guerrier, fait un Chretien timide,” &c.

Do not imagine that I have translated Shakspeare in a servile manner.  Woe to the writer who gives a literal version; who by rendering every word of his original, by that very means enervates the sense, and extinguishes all the fire of it.  It is on such an occasion one may justly affirm, that the letter kills, but the Spirit quickens.

Here follows another passage copied from a celebrated tragic writer among the English.  It is Dryden, a poet in the reign of Charles II.—­a writer whose genius was too exuberant, and not accompanied with judgment enough.  Had he written only a tenth part of the works he left behind him, his character would have been conspicuous in every part; but his great fault is his having endeavoured to be universal.