well if, upon such occasions, these rash allowers could be called to account, as they do intemperate speakers in Parliament, by forcing them to "Name! name!"

Dr Johnson, in that extraordinary compound of turgid contradictions, his "Preface to Shakespeare's Works,” while admitting that "the stream of time, which is continually washing the dissoluble fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of Shakespeare," assures us that “in tragedy he often writes with great appearance of toil and study, what is written at last with little felicity;" adding, “in his tragic scenes there is always something wanting." What a pity he had not told us what that "something" was. Was it the "something" that is to be found in "Irene?"—He goes on to inform us that Shakespeare “sacrifices virtue to convenience, and is so much more careful to please than to instruct, that he seems to write without any moral purpose." (!) It really looks like irony where he observes-"Whenever he solicits his invention, or strains his faculties, the offspring of his throes is tumour, meanness, tediousness, and obscurity." (!) And again-"When he endeavoured, like other tragic writers, to catch opportunities of amplification, and instead of inquiring what the occasion demanded, to show how much his stores of knowledge could supply, he seldom escapes without the pity or resentment of the reader." (!!) It is lamentable to see a man of Johnson's undoubted power so mistaken, when writing upon a genius he could not appreciate. A writer of conventional form and rule like Johnson could no more comprehend the nobly bold and original forms and rules of an author like Shakespeare, than he could himself conceive them. This incapacity for compassing the altitudes and sounding the depths of a poet like Shakespeare, rendered Johnson, if not dishonest, at least uncandid-which is a sort of fraud, or misprision of truth, that amounts to dishonesty in a critic. He is guilty of unfairness; showing partiality where his sympathies incline him, and prejudice where his antipathies warp him. Witness his critical injustice to Milton, whom he hated as a republican, in addition to not being able properly to estimate him as a poet. This sense of inability to value such transcendent geniuses as Shakespeare's and Milton's aright,

goads a critic like Johnson into undervaluing them in token of his superior judgment.

Johnson's edition of Shakespeare had been preceded by Pope's, Theobald's, Hanmer's, and Warburton's; and was succeeded by Steevens's, Capell's, Reed's, and others, within the eighteenth century. Pope's was the first that appeared with annotations, explanatory and emendatory; the office of emendator being exercised with so much licence as to make the text a wide departure from that of the original folios. Pope's preface is an elegant piece of writing, but in its very first paragraph it makes allusion twice to Shakespeare's "faults;" and, after awarding the highest praise for intuitive and innate powers, remarks-" It must be owned that, with all these great excellencies, he has almost as great defects; and that as he has certainly written better, so he has perhaps written worse, than any other." (!)

It would be amusing to see all the censure cast upon Shakespeare by his champions; it could hardly be surpassed, in comprehensive force, by the accusations of his maligners. The fact is, these pseudo-champions have but half faith in him; they first assume certain premises not proved, and then they attempt to argue upon them, and vainly seek to reconcile irreconcilable points. For instance, Pope says-" His sentiments are not only in general the most pertinent and judicious upon every subject; but, by a talent very peculiar, something between penetration and felicity, he hits upon that particular point on which the bent of each argument turns, or the force of each motive depends. This is perfectly amazing, from a man of no education or experience in those great and public scenes of life which are usually the subject of his thoughts." But why, because the precise traces of Shakespeare's educational course and social advantages happen not to be known, must we therefore assume that he had neither? Pope, taking this for granted, is compelled into the vague attribution of a "talent very peculiar, something between penetration and felicity;" and accounts for his "perfectly amazing success," by saying that he seemed to "have looked through human nature at one glance." This is disposing of his mind's force as hap-hazard,-a kind of hit-or-miss good fortune; and

making out his "so potent art" to be a trick of legerdemain.

Certain it is, that people are apt to reason of Shakespeare's powers as of other writers' powers,-forgetting that he had genius "richer than all his tribe." When they say that it was a wonder he could depict so learnedly, having so little learning, they should remember (setting apart the question of his scholastic acquirements) that he knew, of his own knowledge, what other men can never know; that his insight was beyond reasoning upon from ordinary rule and measure, inasmuch as in itself it exceeded all usual limit of human faculty. --When, too, critics complain that Shakespeare had no system, that he wanted method, and that he violated laws of art, they should perceive that he does not follow their preconceived ideas of all these things, but that, in his wealth of invention, he invented system, method, and laws of his own, and upon these he worked. Shakespeare was an incarnation of creative power; he not only created a world of beings, their sphere of existence and action, but created the ordination and framework by which they lived and moved true to nature herself.

As an instance of his substituting his own admirable devices for the clumsier ones of previous dramatic legislators, see how he but occasionally introduces set choruses to animadvert upon the passing pageant; instead of which, in order to explain the argument, to note the progress of time, to mark the state of popular feeling, or other accompanying circumstances needful to be borne in mind by the spectator, he often gives short scenes, that naturally and unformally announce these points, while subtly impressing them on the minds of the audience or reader. Witness that scene in "Richard III.," the third in the second Act, where two citizens meeting are joined by another, and the three talking together of current events, bring these easily, yet forcibly, to the apprehension of the looker-on. The short scene in the "Merchant of Venice," ordinarily omitted in the acting, (so little perception of the dramatist's general intention have the players shown!)* where Shylock follows his victim through the

This scene was retained by Mr Macready, who, during his management, promoted the due representation of Shakespeare's plays on the stage, with a spirit and good taste that laid the foundation of much that is at present effected in the way

streets, bidding the gaoler look to him; how well it serves to keep in mind the Jew's unrelenting malice, his persecution of the imprisoned merchant fallen within his power, and to sustain the interest as well as to time the progress of the drama. The character and soliloquies of Faulconbridge, in the play of "King John," serve the purpose of a moral chorus throughout; while the three gentlemen in "Henry VIII.,” and the two young lords in "All's Well that Ends Well," are used by the dramatist with the same artistic intention.

One of Shakespeare's greatest powers in drawing character is his might of gradual development. Most writers describe moral growth too abruptly. In this one point lay the secret of much of Shakespeare's wondrous art. Another, is his force in unstated effects, subtly conveyed to the spectator's mind; he causes us to feel, instead of bidding us feel. Another, is his miraculous gift in writing silence. This seems paradoxical unto absurdity; but if the reader will carefully observe the ingenuity with which the silence of such characters as Virgilia, Celia, Hermione, and others, is indicated, they will perceive that this dramatist's skill in writing silence is among his most extraordinary powers. In his hands, silence becomes one of the most eloquent of interpreters; it reveals the presence of the beating heart, the unspeakable emotions that surge there,-suspense, agitation, or the muffled throbs of mute agony. Even in comic instances, see how irresistibly humorous Shakespeare has made silence; as in Goodman Dull, and Justice Shallow's delectably dumb cousin, Master Silence himself-only moved to speech by drunken inspiration.

One of the strongest proofs-were proof wanting-of Shakespeare's intrinsic excellence, is that the editions of his works have multiplied with each successive century; and that in proportion with the number of his critics, has been their

of appropriately producing his dramas.

Witness the revivals of "King Lear," Richard III.," "The Tempest," "As You Like It," "Henry V.," "King John," and others, where not only the text was correctly given, and his own careful acting evinced William Macready's respect for the intellectual supremacy of the dramatist; but where the artistic powers of a Clarkson Stanfield were enlisted, together with all the scenic splendours usually lavished on an Easter piece or a Christmas pantomime, in order to lead popular taste into fuller appreciation of the poet's works.

increased praise. The better he is understood, the more highly will he be rated; the better he is known, the more dearly will he be loved. During the present century, editors have brought out versions in every variety of size and shape, and distinguished by every possible care in collating, printing, and publishing. The names of Campbell, Collier, Dyce, Halliwell, Hudson, Knight, Singer, Staunton, and Verplank, stand pre-eminent as editors of Shakespeare. Armitage Brown, Coleridge, Halpin, Hazlitt, Mrs Jameson, Charles Lamb, Maurice Morgann, B. W. Proctor (Barry Cornwall), and Professor Wilson, have exercised their critical faculty in finest appreciation of the poet's transcendent beauties. The brothers Schlegel, Wieland, Eschenburg, Lessing, Voss, Herder, Schiller, Goethe, Tieck, and Ulrici, have proved Germany's estimation of our dramatist; Peter Foersom, in his devotion to Shakespeare, persevering, when he earned scarcely dry bread by translating his plays,-proclaimed at least one Danish heart's veneration for the author of "Hamlet." The author of "Doctor Antonio" spoke an eloquent word on behalf of Italy's holding that "Shakespeare is not the poet of any age or country, but of mankind," while Dumas, Guizot, Le Tourneur, Villemain, and Victor Hugo, have redeemed France from the reproach which Voltaire's prejudiced view of Shakespeare's genius left upon their country. The testimony borne by Alexandre Dumas to our great dramatist's merits is characteristically vehement; it is in his essay entitled, "How I Became a Dramatic Author," and runs. thus" I read, I devoured the foreign drama, and I found that in the dramatic world all emanated from Shakespeare, as in the actual world all emanates from the sun; that none could compare with him, for that he was as dramatic as Corneille, as comic as Molière, as original as Calderon, as reflective as Goethe, as passionate as Schiller. I found that his works, in themselves, contained as many types as the works of all the others put together."

Victor Hugo also awards the palm of pre-eminence to Shakespeare, in these words :-" The dramatic poet's aim— whatever otherwise may form the amount of his ideas on Art -should always be, above all, to seek the Great, like Corneille,