find consistent meanings and intentions in | intellect, the mind morbidly metaphysical, all Shakspeare's plays, and of laughing at labo- whose operations are "sicklied o'er with the rious German critics, such as Ulrici, who pale cast of thought," and each of whose make it their business to discover and expound movements is attended, not with a practical "the central idea" of this play or of that. result, but with a precipitate of profound reShakspeare, say the popular critics-think-flections respecting whatever is on hand. We ing themselves clever fellows and men of the ask whether that view of the play of Hamlet world for saying so did not bother himself is not sufficient which supposes that Shakwith "central ideas," but wrote on and on speare meant to represent the breakdown of without any such deep and fine meanings as such an over-speculative, over-metaphysical his ingenious commentators find in him! And intellect in circumstances requiring consumso, whether Hamlet was sane or insane, or mate action (if, indeed, any conceivable kind only pretendedly insane, seems a question of of action would have been consummate enough moonshine to these critics-undeterminable to suit), without supposing also that he meant or not worth determining. They can enjoy to portray an access in this mind of any addithe play, in their own way, without settling tional insanity. And we ask, in the second the question, or even asking it! Now, all place, whether such a state of mind—all its this is mighty bluff-looking and manly look- strangeness, all its secretiveness, all its ferocing; but, rightly considered, it is sheer ex-ity in speech, all its listlessness in action, and ultation in stupidity. Shakspeare, probably, all its unkindness even to Ophelia included— always knew what he was about; he proba- ought to be called insanity. All Denmark bly never did a thing without knowing that voted Hamlet insane; and Dr. Conolly votes he was doing it, and perceiving all its specu-him insane. But a very popular definition lative bearings. That he had a definite no- of insanity regards as insanity all very contion of what he meant Hamlet to be—that he spicuous difference from the mood of the mahad in view, in the character of Hamlet, the jority; and we have read enough of medical representation of a certain type or state of dissertations on insanity to see that, accordmind—is undeniable by any person not abso-ing to the definitions of some physicians, every lutely" beef-witted," as Thersites said Ajax was, and as some English critics are apt to be. Dr. Conolly's theory, that Shakspeare meant to represent in Hamlet a peculiar state of highly intellectual insanity, is, therefore, we repeat, worthy of respectful consideration. For ourselves, we cannot say that we are quite satisfied with it. We miss in Dr. Conolly's investigation, fine as it is, that deep philosophy which we find in Goethe's criticism of "Hamlet" -to which, strangely enough, Dr. Conolly makes no allusion; and, having read the play of "Hamlet" nearly through again since reading Dr. Conolly's essay, we find two queries still recurring to us which might mar or greatly modify Dr. Conolly's conclusion. In the first place, we find ourselves inquiring whether Dr. Conolly takes sufficient account of Hamlet as we are taught to fancy him before the play opens the Wittenberg student, the over-speculative thought over.

splendid or unusual man that walks among us has burst the bounds of reason, has incipient brain-disease, and is on his way to an asylum. We inquire, therefore, whether Shakspeare, in Hamlet, may not have meant merely to represent some splendid and unusual state of mind with which he was personally very familiar-abnormal, perhaps, as being over-speculative and over-metaphysical; but not necessarily insane, save in a sense in which the world might well tolerate more specimens of such insanity than it is ever likely to have. We are not sure but he may have meant to describe to the world, in the Hamlet-mind, a constitution of mind which he thought not insane, but only grand and rare. But, though Dr. Conolly's theory in its totality, does not convince us on its first presentation, it may gain strength, or at least exert an influence, as it is further

From The Athenæum.

The Phantom Bouquet: a Popular Treatise on the Art of Skeletonizing Leaves and Seed Vessels, and adapting them to Embellish the Home of Taste. By Edward Parrish. (Philadelphia, Lippincott & Co.; London Bennett.)

portrayed;" and the inscription is a compliment, however oddly worded.

The art of what we may call Leaf-bleaching has been traditionally known in Europe and Asia for many centuries, but seems to have reached Philadelphia, in America, only just before the civil war. This American druggist

the cellular tissue, the seat of the marvels of cell life, the parenchyma, which becomes the germ and the pollen, "the grosser particles "

:

MR. EDWARD PARRISH is an eminent drug writes about it in the enthusiastic strain of cook. His writings on drug cookery, or the Scottish editor whose descriptions of the pharmaceutical chemistry, have gained him British metropolis provoked his readers to say the esteem of the brethren of his craft in" he seemed to have discovered London." Europe as well as in America. When they To this circumstance we owe this little book learn, therefore, that he has been recreating the first, as far as we know, ever devoted himself from the fatigues of graver labors, if to an art producing very pretty and instrucnot more useful pursuits, by writing in a high- tive results, and well worthy the attention flown style a brochure on a "Phantom Bou- of ladies. Skeleton leaves have, for the first quet," they will receive the information with time, a little book all about themselves. some amusement. They will smile all the Some years ago, Mr. Parrish was attracted more when they learn that the book is obvi- by a beautiful vase of prepared leaves, and ously misnamed. Opticians can make phan-seed-vessels, displaying the delicate veinings tom bouquets; and now that scientific spectres of these plant structures, and of such brilare doing the business of poetical and dra- liant whiteness as to suggest the idea of permatic ghosts upon the stage, spectral flowers fectly bleached artificial lace-work or exquimay soon be seen adorning theatres and draw-site carvings in ivory. Mr. Parrish is so ing-rooms with their ethereal and startling little of a physiological botanist, that he calls beauty. It is the optician, and not the botanist, who can make phantom bouquets. But leaves and not flowers, fibres and not phantoms, are the themes of this publication of Mr. Parrish, of Philadelphia. He is nearer "This elegant parlor ornament was brought the mark when he compares the art of prepar- by returning travellers as a novel and choice ing leaves to something like what Sydney Smith trophy of their Transatlantic wandering; fancied he would like doing to himself, when he none could be procured in America, and no wished to lay aside his too cumbrous flesh dur-one to whom the perplexed admirer could ing the intense heat of the dog-days, and sit in his bones. By phantom bouquets are meant "skeleton leaves," long and familiarly known in Europe, as exhibited at horticultural shows in shop-windows, and used as drawing-room ornaments and educational appliances. Mr. Parrish is as unfortunate in his second name for the art in question, calling it “skeletonizing”—a term which includes not merely the gratification of the whim of Sydney Smith, but the pursuit in which the most memorable feat was performed by the ants in the Hartz Forest: they prepared the skeleton of the deer which enabled Oken to perceive that the skull is only a developed vertebra. After calling its subject by such over-fine and over-dismal names-skeletonizing and phantom-making-Mr. Parrish affectionately inscribes his book to his wife, as "a pioneer and proficient in the art herein

appeal was able to give a clue to the process tion of details could be evolved from strucby which such surprising beauty and perfectures which generally rank among the least admired expansions of the tissue of the plant. That the novelty of this spectacle then constituted one of its chief attractions need not be denied. Yet the phantom case, now that hundreds of pier-tables and étagères in city and its photographic miniature, under the and country are garnished with its airy forms, well-chosen motto of Beautiful in Death,' is displayed in almost every stereoscope, still delights with a perennial charm, creating a desire among all amateurs in matters of taste, to add an ornament so chaste to their household treasures."

Leaf-bleaching has been known traditionally from time immemorial in Europe and Asia by the families in which botanical tastes have been hereditary. It is not, as Mr. Parrish calls it a lost art revived; and it has nei

them to notice the differences of leaves, serrated or entire, ovate, accuminate, cordate, or irregular. Observers of leaves, we may add, will see greater marvels than this book promises them. They may witness the metamorphoses of the leaves, which are quite as wonderful and beautiful as the metamorphoses of the insects, and much less known. The egg, grub, and fly in the circle of insect life are not more interesting to watch, as forms passing into each other, than are the seed, leaf, petal, sepal, stamen or pistil, cell, and pollen, watched as changes of form in the phases of plant life. Prof. Schleiden and other botanists who have never mastered Goethe's theory and Geoffroy St. Hilaire's explanation of monstrosities, have sneered at the discov

ther been forgotten nor restored. In Great | of observation in young people, and cause Britain and on the continent of Europe, as well as in the United or Disunited States, among the quaint old curiosities to be found in the houses of retired sea captains and East India traders, Chinese pictures are often to be found, sometimes of considerable beauty and ingenuity, exhibiting flowers, fruit, shells, birds or insects painted in bright colors on veritable skeleton leaves. The process is to be found described in old books published in London in the seventeenth century. It appears to have been introduced into England from Italy, probably in the Elizabethan age, when the Italian mind had so much influence upon the English mind. In 1645, at the time of the civil war, Marcus Aurelius Severinus, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at Naples, published a figure of a skeleton leaf. Fred-ery of the poet-botanist; but any observer erick Ruysch, naturalist, published an account of the process of fermentation, by which heat and moisture could be employed to loosen the pulpy from the fibrous parts of the leaf. This fact, so long known in Europe, was circulated as a secret in Philadelphia in 1860! Secrets do not fly so very fast after all.

of the leaves of the wild strawberry may easily convince himself that scientific accuracy is not on the side, on this occasion, of certain mere botanists.

Not merely in summer, but nearly all the year round, may leaves be gathered for bleaching. Leaves already prepared are sometimes found in winter and early spring, Leaves macerate best when gathered or picked mature, perfect, unblemished, and fresh. The leaves of suckers are large, but not strong. A list of forty plants whose leaves, and twenty more whose seed-vessels, reward bleaching, is appended to this essay. Among the hardy deciduous plants and shrubs are maples, poplars, lindens, magnolias, tulip poplars, willows, beech, ash, hickory, chestnut, horse chestnut, elm, Kentucky coffee-tree, pear, quince, apricot, andromeda, deutzia, spiræa, sassafras, althæa, pomegranate, rose-acacia, rose, medlar, wild cherry, sugar-berry, witch hazel, Fraxinella dictamnus, Gardenia flor

"The leaf is the plant," say the disciples of Goethe; and there is as much truth in the proposition as can be compressed into a saying. There are air and water, stem and flower, leaves. Botanists divide the tissues of plants into vascular and cellular; and in skeleton leaves the cellular tissue is removed and the vascular retained. The vascular tissue branches through the cellular by what used to be called nerves, and are now called veins. Mr. Parrish, after certain European theorists, calls the leaf the type of the tree, in the sense that the leaf-veins correspond exactly to the branches of the trunks in their angles and curves. The skeleton leaf is its tree, leafless, in miniature. Prior to comparing the leaf-ida, Laurestina franciscea, Erythrina cristiless tree with the skeleton leaf, the tree ought to be seen in the "gloaming;" just as Sir Walter Scott said that, to be seen to advantage, Melrose Abbey must be seen by moonlight. No doubt it is well to compare the leaf-pattern with the tree-pattern; and there is some ground in reality for these fanciful correspondences. The length of the stalk and of the trunk are relative to each other shooting up or sitting low; as, for example, in the poplar and chestnut, beech and oak. Leaf-bleaching, however fanciful these resemblances may be deemed, must promote habits

galla, Virgilia lutea, white fringe-tree. Among the evergreens are holly, mahonea, barberry, mountain laurel, box, butcher's broom, Olea fragrans, Camellia japonica, caoutchouc; and among the vines and creepers are ivy, begonia, witsaria, Dutchman's pipe, greenbriars, and wild yam. The seedvessels, modified leaves, and calyxes, successfully macerated or found naturally prepared, are thorn-apple, poppy, mallows, nicandra, physalis, henbane, monkshood, wild sage, safflower, canterbury bells, toad flax, skullcap, figwort, French tomato, wild hydrangea,

hydrangea, bladder senna, bladder nut, ptelia, | pass into the earth from which they sprang

false pennyroyal.

arate leaf.

Leaf-macerating is very simple. Mr. Parrish cannot, however, be recommended as a safe guide in the process, for his advice is too vague and his methods are too rough. Nothing can be more misleading than to say a single vessel will suffice for many similar leaves of different kinds; for the leaf-bleachers who succeed best in this country say a separate vessel is necessary for every sep A few leaves of the same plant are all which ought to be in a single vessel. The leaf-bleacher, in fact, who feels all the difficulties of his art will not, whilst he is but a beginner, simultaneously attempt to macerate and bleach a great variety of different kinds of leaves, but will make the leaves of each species his separate care and study. Each species requires special treatment, either as regards maceration, bleaching, manipulation or time. Beautiful skeleton leaves of the Camellia japonica, for instance, are obtained by boiling them with

soap.

The tannin in oak-leaves enables them to resist the ordinary process of maceration in a vessel of water in which evaporation is promoted by solar or artificial heat. Oak-leaves are prepared in England by a process repudiated in Philadelphia, by mixing dilute muriatic acid with the macerating water. Beautiful and ready prepared oak-leaves are found in the fresh water streams of America. And they are prepared by very singular artists! But we shall allow Mr. Parrish to describe this curious observation in his own way and words :

by a slow but sure decay. The oak-leaves, as would be supposed, longest resist this destiny. Even those that have fallen into the slimy mass, except by mixing with other yonder stream have not matted themselves into and less hardy leaves; and here if the explorer will search closely, he may occasionally find almost perfectly skeletonized oakleaves. How came they so? Look, provident Nature has found a way to make them, intractable as they are, to subserve a purpose in her wise economy. Thousands of curious little animals called caddice bugs [sic] who envelop themselves in a tubular little cocoon [sic] of pebbles and sand, are daintily masticating the soft parts of these, leaving all the veinings as perfect as the most captious skeletonizer could desire. It is true that after the rough usage of the running stream upon twigs, chestnut-burs, acorns, and the like, its pebbled bottom and the thick matrix of very few perfect specimens remain, but then, my friend, here is a hint for us. Change these adverse conditions; colonize, by the aid of an exploring kettle, a few hundred caddices with their moveable tents [sic] to your own sheltered veranda; give them a shallow dish with a bed of sand in the bottom and a constant trickle of fresh water to resemble their native stream; then supply them with their favorite leaf, and they will clean it for you to perfection. This has been done successfully, and it can be done again."

The insect in question is, no doubt, the larva of a species of Phryganea, or caddis-fly, called by anglers cad-bait and water-moth. They may be seen flying over the surface of the water about sundown. The species serviceable in Philadelphia in preparing oak-leaves may not be identical with the species found abundantly in water-cress beds in French "It yet remains to notice in connection and English streams. But no one desirous with oak-leaves, what cannot fail to excite of repeating and testing the experiment can the liveliest pleasure in every naturalist who fail of being rewarded for his pains. The delights to seek the woods and streams on English type of the species (Phrygenea Granchill autumn days, though all the fragrant dis), if it does not feed upon the parenchyma epigeas, the delicate bloodroots, the pale of oak-leaves, certainly feeds upon cresses. spring beauties, the modest quaker ladies,'

and all their lovely spring companions have And no more curious animal can be watched so long departed as to diffuse almost a feel- in a tank! His pharmaceutical repute coning of sadness in visiting the now desolate sidered, it is astonishing that Mr. Parrish slopes they rendered so inviting. Let our should have called this insect a bug, and its amateur note what becomes of the leaves that, tubular abdominial case, or sheath, a cocoon having performed their alotted part in the or tent. Entomology, we fear, is not much growth of the forest and ceased to be fer- cultivated in Philadelphia. The species commented by the life-sustaining sap, have yielded to the blast and now thickly strew the ground, mon in Europe may be seen taking the fine awakening, as stirred by the wind or the foot white threadlike spongioles of the floating of the pedestrian, the familiar rustle of the water-cress, and twining them in rings around autumnal woods. These are all destined to its body and then glueing the shells of plan

orbes and other young or tiny mollusks to the tube of rings!

Mr. Parish mentions some electrical observations made upon skeleton leaves and flowers in glass cases which deserve quotation, although mistakenly stated :

Saying nothing about a flash which is not seen, we suspect that the volatile flowers mount by specific gravity, because cold air is admitted at the bottom of the shade by the shaking which follows the dusting. But the statement respecting the handkerchief and the fern-leaves is worth testing.

For bleaching the leaves, solutions of chloride of soda and chloride of lime are used, and some succeed best in the one and some in the other solution. Mr. Parish gives up flowers and the leaves of herbs as hopeless,

"In a model phantom-case, arranged by a medical friend, himself a model naturalist, humble that he knows no more,' a delicate fern rising to the summit trembles with electric vibrations on every touch of a silk handkerchief to the glass, while a little tuft of hydrangea flowers, loosed from its moorings, rises to the top like a balloon whenever the but many of them may be dried and preunseen electric flash is wakened even by dust-served in very fine and very dry sand. ing the surface of the shade."

WHAT DID JAMES WATT KNOW OF PHOTOG-On the back of one of the prints was found an RAPHY? — There have recently come to light inscription in the handwriting of James Watt, some pictures executed by James Watt which were identifying it as his production. From the great undoubtedly produced by the agency of light, scientific interest attached to this discovery, and and probably at a date long before the commence- the care and skill with which it is being investiment of the present century. Yet some of these gated, there can be little doubt that all the parare so exquisite in color and sharpness, that per- ticulars will eventually be found out. There will sons who have made photography their especial then be need for our neighbors to produce very study found it difficult to decide, on mere exam- convincing proofs of the independent re-discovery ination of individual specimens, that they had of the art by Daguerre, as there is a great mys not been produced by the brush. The marvel tery about his early experiments, and evidence becomes still greater when it is considered that has already been obtained that these newly-found modern photographs on paper, especially on photographs were originally exported to France, coarse and common paper like these newly-dis- whence they have now, by a strange chance, covered pictures, turn yellow and fade in a few come back to the Patent Museum at South Kenyears. There has not yet been found any ex-sington.-Lancet. planation of the process by which the pictures were produced, but there is intrinsic evidence

that the material employed differed altogether MESSRS. JENNINGS of Cheapside have now on from any now ordinarily used. The detailed de-view Mr. Barker's picture, "The Secret of Engscription and the history of the discovery will land's Greatness," founded on the alleged reply not be made public until the investigations now of her majesty to the envoy of the African prince, being industriously pursued have been completed. who presented her some costly presents, and in The specimens already found comprise some pic- return desired to know the secret of England's tures on metal resembling the early daguerreo-greatness. Handing the envoy a copy of the Bitypes and a number of large prints on paper. ble, her majesty said: "Tell the prince, your The date of the metal pictures can be approxi- master, that this is the secret of England's greatmately fixed, since one of them represents Watt's ness." In the painting, the Ethopian envoy house at Soho as it appeared prior to certain characteristically and richly clad, is kneeling bealterations made about 1791. The paper pic-fore the queen, by whom the prince consort is tures are mostly copies of figure-compositions by standing. On the right hand are Lord PalmerAngelina Kauffman; differing, however, from ston and Earl Russell, the latter then John Rusthe originals in having the figures reversed. One of these pictures, printed on a sheet of water-lined foolscap paper of very coarse texture, was exhibited at the last meeting of the London Photographic Society, in order that the experts present might decide whether it had been produced by the agency of light. The general con- IN the course of the current year 1863, one clusion arrived at was that it was undoubtedly bookselling-house in Germany, it is said, attains an untouched photograph. Whatever the mate- the two hundredth year of its existence, and rial employed, it had evidently been laid on the four others may celebrate their hundredth ansurface of the paper like a sensitive varnish.niversary.

sell; and behind the queen is the Duchess of Wellington. The grouping is artistically arranged, and the costumes are most elaborately finished.