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the hope of escape by endeavouring to intimidate Macduff by announcing that he "bears a charmed life." Macduff's declaration of his being untimely ripped from his mother's womb drives Macbeth to despair, and he raves over the overwhelming announcement like one possessed. But Macduff still pressing the tyrant to the encounter commands him to yield as a coward he must yield

"And live to be the show and gaze o' the time."

Macbeth then finding words of no avail, with a sort of frantic energy fights without skill or judgment, and meets at length the soldier's death which he did not merit.

Thus Shakspeare, from the first to the last in these two remarkable plays, works out the characters of his heroes with surprising skill. It should be recollected that while the poet exhibits the two monarchs as deeply steeped in crime, it is a great question whether he has been truthful in doing so. Of Richard's extreme culpability there have been doubts raised; while Macbeth, it has been asserted, was a man totally different from what we find him on the stage. In the case of Richard, Shakspeare depicted him the monster he seems to be, doubtless to gratify the prejudices of his royal mistress, whose Tudor blood ran adverse to that of York, and who entertained all the Lancastrian dislike to those who mustered under the standard of the pale rose. Shakspeare in this fully exemplifies his own assertion in Hamlet

"That it were better to have a bad epitaph

Than the players' ill report."

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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LIVERPOOL LIBRARY.

By P. Macintyre, Esq., M.D.

(READ 14TH MAY, 1857.)

In the present year, 1857, when we look at Liverpool as the first mercantile port in the world, with her docks and her ships, her 400,000 inhabitants, her railways, her electric telegraphs, her penny newspapers, and her free libraries, it is with no small difficulty that we can go back a hundred years, and picture to ourselves the public and private condition of our great-grandfathers in "the good old town" in 1757. Even then, however, Liverpool was a thriving little seaport. Her population was only 24,000, but the number of her vessels of all sizes (and the largest of them was but small) had increased from 15, a century before, to 437. She possessed two wonderful docks-the Old dock, and the Salthouse dock— the safety and convenience of which were the admiration of all who saw them, and she participated largely in the profits of the slave trade.

In 1757 England was at war with France. Privateers were fitted out, in Liverpool and other ports, amidst great excitement. Travelling from place to place was very slow, and not very safe. Newspapers and periodical publications were few, and their intelligence scanty and long after date; consequently, the events of the war, and the important domestic events of the country, must have been only imperfectly known. We cannot but suppose that the enterprising inhabitants of Liverpool must have felt a deep interest in the victories and defeats of their countrymen by sea and land, as well as in such passing events as the court-martial and execution of Admiral Byng, and in the romantic and long delayed apprehension and condemnation of Eugene Aram, for the murder of Clark. This "pursuit of knowledge under difficulties" resulted in the establishment, in September, 1756, of "Williamson's Liverpool Advertiser," a weekly newspaper which-after an honourable career of one hundred years-died but the other day as "The Liverpool Times."

The foundation of one of our public institutions, the " Liverpool Library," took place also at this time. A few gentlemen had for a year or two, prior to 1757, been in the habit of meeting together for the purpose

of discussing literary subjects, and of reading a portion of the periodical publications of the day. They met from time to time at the house of Mr. William Everard, an eminent mathematician and a schoolmaster, who lived in St. Paul's square. The small collection of books brought out on these occasions was kept in a corner cupboard in Mr. Everard's parlour. It was in the year 1757, however, when-the books becoming more numerous, and requiring to be transferred from the cupboard to a large chest that the idea of circulating them among the members of the club came to be entertained and acted upon.

"The success of this little society," says the preface to the last edition of the catalogue, "and the benefit derived from the circulation of the books, suggested the desirableness of extending the plan; and in the beginning of the year 1758, several of the principal merchants, professional men, and tradesmen of the town, including probably all the members of St. Paul's Square Club, 'with the view,' as their prospectus states, 'of furnishing an ample fund of amusement and improvement at the easiest expense,' formed themselves into a society for establishing a circulating library. The scheme was warmly taken up, and on the 1st of May, 1758, the LIVERPOOL LIBRARY was founded. The contribution of each member, on joining the society, was one guinea, after which an annual subscription of five shillings was to be paid so long as he should choose to continue a member. The gentlemen of the Coffee-house Club (probably a club connected with the St. George's Coffee-house, in Castle street, at which the committee and general meetings of the Library assembled for many years), presented a collection of books, which was considered as their first subscription of a guinea each."

In this way, then, and from these beginnings, arose the Liverpool Library, which enjoys the proud distinction of being the first circulating library, not only in England, but in Europe. Some of its most important laws, notwithstanding that a century has elapsed since they were framed, remain, in principle, the same to this day; and this code of laws has frequently been made use of as a model for other institutions of a similar kind.

Shortly afterwards, but still during the year 1758, the first catalogue was published, and contained 450 volumes. It also contained a list of the proprietors, 109 in number, in which may be recognised many family

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