The generous answer of Valentine has always been a difficulty in the solution of the plot :

"By penitence the Eternal's wrath's appeas'd,-
And, that my love may appear plain and free,
All that was mine in Silvia, I give thee.

Is this some error of the text? or is it the meaning of the
poet that Valentine resigns Silvia to Proteus ? We think it
is the poet's meaning. Valentine has just exclaimed
"Now I dare not say

I have one friend alive."

He is a banished man—a companion of outlaws. He must "count the world a stranger." Let it not be forgotten that it might be the purpose of the poet to exhibit the romance of friendship, even to the unnatural excess of abandoning a mistress to a rival. It was the spirit of self-sacrifice, contrasting with the spirit of self-assertion in Chaucer's Palamon and Arcite, But Julia discovers herself and then the whole aspect is changed. Valentine resents the claims of Thurio to Silvia-he is again her betrothed lover. The Duke forgives the faithless one returns to his duty-the comedy ends with "one mutual happiness."

Shakspere, who was a mere boy when he married, has in this comedy exhibited something of the ardent but superficial character of boyish love. His own Romeo was a lover before he saw Juliet.

The arrangement of the plays in the first collected edition of Shakspere appears to be an arbitrary one, with the exception of the 'Histories,' which are given in the order of events. The Comedies' and the Tragedies' seem to have a sequence which was probably accidental, but which may have been chosen for the sake of variety. This order is followed in most modern editions of Shakspere; and it will be preserved in this edition.

We think it of the greatest importance to the proper understanding of an author that the reader should be able to compare him with himself. In our previous editions of the plays of Shakspere we presented them (with the exception of the 'Histories') in the order in which we believed

them to have been written. The effect of this was, especially as regarded the 'Comedies,' to offer some of the weakest of the great dramatist's productions first to the readers. Some of them might be readers of Shakspere for the first time. The volume of 'Comedies' of our 'National Edition' opens with 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona,' and 'The Comedy of Errors.' Unquestionably both these plays are greatly inferior to such noble productions as 'The Tempest' and 'The Merchant of Venice.' The supposed chronological order may best satisfy the critic; but it must be supported by an almost unlimited amount of evidence, in great part conjectural. Those elaborate inquiries, which too often lead to dogmatical assertions, are scarcely within the range of 'The Stratford Edition.' The order of the original folio is an artificial arrangement, but not without its advantages. It may, in its aggregate effects, give something of the same pleasure which we derive from the contemplation of a natural landscape as distinguished from a formal parterre. This absence of a principle of arrangement produces contrast, and thus insensibly develops the critical feeling in the reader.

Let us endeavour to illustrate our meaning by a few observations upon the two plays in this volume.

We believe The Tempest' to be a play of Shakspere's matured intellect; and 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona' a play of his earliest period. It does not require any refinement of criticism in a reader to be struck with the prodigious difference of tone in these two productions. They are both works purely imaginative, and belong to the class of romantic dramas. And yet 'The Tempest,' with its supernatural structure-its magician, its spirits, its monster, its music in the air, its rapid transformations-we feel to be a reality. On the other hand, "The Two Gentlemen of Verona,' with its ordinary love-story, we feel to be, so to speak, unreal. This characteristic of reality, as opposed to what is featureless and shadowy, is the great triumph of all Art, whether that of the Poet or the Painter. But this excellence is almost invariably the result of continued efforts of industry. Ben Jonson truly said, applying the saying to Shakspere, that "a good poet's made as well as born."

There must have been years of labour before the genius that produced 'The Two Gentlemen of Veronu' could have produced 'The Tempest.' It is not merely the great solemn thoughts that we find in 'The Tempest,' or the marvellous beauty of the supernatural machinery, that so raise it above the play before us, and some others of Shakspere's earlier works. But it is, to our minds, the perfect distinctness with which the dialogue presents the plot and characters to our view. Look at the loves of Ferdinand and Miranda. That exquisite woman had never before seen a man, except her father. How clear is the conception of this most difficult position. What grace, what tenderness, what confiding modesty ! This is the work of the great matured artist. The Julias and Silvias of the earlier play are the sketches of a youth. They are very delicate and pretty; but they are lifeless by comparison. The one reality of 'The Two

Gentlemen of Verona' is Launce-a true creation of that comic power which in Shakspere is almost instinctive.