TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

A FEW words to explain why it has been thought well to add, to the already overwhelming number of Shakespeare studies, this translation of the first part of M. Stapfer's "Shakespeare et l'Antiquité," seem not uncalled for in these days, when Shakespeare criticism has already reached such huge proportions as to cause its very name. to be received with a half weary, half impatient sigh.

We have heard a good deal lately of German commentators on Shakespeare, but no word has for a long time come to us from France-that land peculiarly famed for literary skill and for acute and delicate criticism; and, therefore, to hear what one of the first French literary critics of the day has to say concerning our great English poet can hardly fail to be of great interest and value.

Moreover, the subject of M. Stapfer's book-not Shakespeare, but Greek and Roman antiquity as represented in Shakespeare's plays-invests it with a special character, and offers many fresh and suggestive points of view; the comparative smallness of the framework admitting also of a more minute and thorough mode of treatment than would otherwise be possible.

That his book should contain any facts or details possessing the charms of novelty for English readers is scarcely likely the facts of a man's history offer but little scope for invention,-but the point of importance

with the literary critic is the use to which the facts are put, and his chief concern with otherwise trivial and time-worn details is to make them full of fresh interest and life for us, by ordering and manipulating them so as to bring the truths they serve to illustrate, or to suggest, into clear and unmistakeable prominence. Unless they float, as it were, upon a sea of thought, in the midst of fresh and invigorating breezes, among the currents and tides of conflicting opinions and ideas, they are altogether vapid and useless to him.

For those readers who only care for discussion of some obscure passage or obsolete word, there will, I fear, be nothing but disappointment in store; the aim of the book is of a purely literary character, and it offers no information of an etymological or philological nature. But though this may render it valueless to one class of readers, it enables it, I trust, to appeal the more surely to those by whom literature-in contradistinction to science, history, and to all books written entirely for the sake of imparting information, without the devotion of any special care to the manner in which the information is given-is prized as one of the most precious forms. of art.

It is no easy task to translate a book in which so great a part is played by the style of the author, the charm of which, with all its lightness, point, and grace, it must be vain to hope to render in a translation. I have endeavoured, as far as might be, to convey some. slight notion of it, and although the echoes of the original sound can, at best, be only few and faint, I hope the impression may somehow make itself felt that the book in its original form aims at being a work of art.

The work to which M. Stapfer has given the title of "Shakespeare et l'Antiquité," consists of two distinct and independent parts. The first part-" Greek and Latin Antiquity as presented in Shakespeare's Plays "

which forms the subject of the present volume, is simply, as M. Stapfer says in his preface, a study of one aspect of Shakespeare's work and genius, which necessitates an examination of only seven of his plays.

The second part-" Shakespeare and the Greek Tragedians" *-embraces a wider horizon. It is a general history of the changes undergone by dramatic art, comparing, in a series of essays, ancient tragedy with modern tragedy; it is a work in which Shakespeare is, rightly speaking, the centre, rather than the precise and actual subject. M. Stapfer continues, "There yet remained to be done. for comedy what had been done for tragedy: 'Shakespeare and the Greek Tragedians' might naturally be expected to be followed by Shakespeare and Aristophanes,' but a comparison drawn between these two poets hardly offers sufficiently fertile grounds to justify such a title; and I have therefore preferred that of 'Molière, Shakespeare, et la Critique Allemande,' which appears as a separate work at the end of 'Shakespeare et l'Antiquité.'"

It only remains for me to add, that wherever I have in any way deviated from the text, whether by the omission or by the insertion of a few words here and there which, however, has very seldom been the case,— it has been with the full knowledge and sanction of the author.

EMILY J. CAREY.

* This second part has already been published in Paris; its future appearance in English depends upon various circumstances.