ciences for 1843, shew, that when tested
with the thermo-multiplier, the zodiacal light was found to radiate
heat as well as light--a fact which, if further verified, will support
the evidence in favour of an independent luminous ring.

WHO WROTE SHAKSPEARE?

Thus asks Mrs Kitty in _High Life Below Stairs_, to which his Grace my
Lord Duke gravely replies: 'Ben Jonson.' 'O no,' quoth my Lady Bab:
'Shakspeare was written by one Mr Finis, for I saw his name at the end
of the book!' and this passes off as an excellent joke, and never
fails to elicit the applause of the audience; but still the question
remains unanswered: Who wrote Shakspeare? a question, we humbly think,
which might be made the theme for as much critical sagacity,
pertinacity, and pugnacity, as the almost equally interesting
question, who wrote Homer? In the former case, the question is
certainly in one respect more simple, for the recognised plays and
poems that go by Shakspeare's name are--at least by far the larger
portion--unquestionably from one and the same pen; while Homer, poor,
dear, awful, august, much-abused shade! has been torn by a pack of
German wolves into fragments, which it puzzles the lore and research
of Grote and Muir to patch together again. Even Mr Grote seems
disposed to admit, that while the _Odyssey_ may pass muster as one
continuous poem, whatever was the name of the author, the greater
_Iliad_ must be broken up at least into an _Iliad_ and an _Achilleid_,
by different rhapsodists; and though Colonel Muir stands stoutly on
the other side, the restoration of the unity of Homer may, even with
us sober-minded thinkers, take ten times the years it took to capture
Troy; while with the German Mystics and Mythists, the controversy may
last till they have to open their bewildered and bewildering eyes upon
the realities of another world.

So far, therefore, the question is limited, for we are entitled to
assume, what no one at this time of day dreams of disputing, that
_Hamlet_ and his fellows are not only the productions of one mind, but
are beyond comparison the greatest productions which man's intellect,
not divinely inspired, has yet achieved. The question therefore
is--who wrote them? With the exception of Homer, who lived before the
time of written history, and Junius, who purposely and successfully
shrouded himself in obscurity, there has, perhaps, been no great
writer who has not in his life, his letters, or his sayings,