our rich misers to nothing so fitly as to a whale: a' plays and tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at last devours them all at a mouthful. Such whales have I heard on o' the land, who never leave gaping till they've swallowed the whole parish-church, steeple, bells and all." "But, master," rejoins the first speaker, "if I had been the sexton, I would have been that day in the belfry." "Why, man?" "Because he should have swallowed me too; and, when I had been in his belly, I would have kept up such a jangling of the bells, that he should never have left till he cast bells, steeple, church and parish up again."

The cheeriest of all these Graver Comedies is A Winter's Tale, in which appears one of Shakspeare's most comic characters-Autolycus, of whom it may be said, as Falstaff said of himself, that he is not only witty himself, but the cause of wit in others, because he has been the prototype of not a few comic figures in later English literature, such as George Eliot's witty pedlar Bob Jakin, who is an undeniable imitation of Autolycus, and Dickens' travelling auctioneer, Doctor Marigold, whose flow of language is obviously imitated from the same source. Autolycus is a discharged serving-man, who, under stress of circumstances, has taken to the trade of thieving; or, to use his own phrase, he is a "snapper-up of unconsidered trifles". He first appears lying apparently wounded in the highway and crying out at the pitch of his voice for help, as a clown

passes, who runs to discharge the function of the Good Samaritan and, as he does so, is softly relieved of his purse. At the sheep-sheering festival Autolycus is the soul of the fun, astonishing the rustics with his torrent of words, singing ballads and selling them, commending the stock of his pack with a song :

Lawn as white as driven snow,
Cypress black as e'er was crow,
Gloves as sweet as damask roses,
Masks for faces and for noses,
Bugle bracelet, necklace amber,
Perfume for a lady's chamber,
Golden quoifs and stomachers

For my lads to give their dears,

Pins and poking-sticks of steel,

What maids lack from head to heel,

Come buy of me, come, come buy, come buy,
Buy lads, or else your lasses cry

Come buy;

and then, when his customers are fascinated with their purchases, plying his light fingers in the neighbourhood of their purses. Autolycus is a thief, but he pays for what he steals with his jokes and high spirits; or, as Professor Dowden says, "he does not trample on the laws of morality, but dances or leaps over them with so nimble a foot that we forbear to stay him".

There is an abject way of reading Shakspeare, too prevalent at the present time, which worships everything written by him and bestows on one and all of his works the same unlimited admiration. This is objectionable for many reasons, but especially for this one, that, if our superlatives are thrown away in this prodigal fashion, we cannot get the use of them when they are really applicable. The fact is, Shakspeare is a very unequal writer; and among the Graver Comedies there are some so good as to excite wonder that the author who produced them should have fathered others so thin in substance and so disjointed in construction.

There is one of these plays especially that leaves the rest completely behind and takes rank with The Merchant of Venice, Julius Cæsar, Henry the Fifth, and the very choicest of the poet's productions. This is The Tempest, which is usually printed first in editions of the poet's works, a position to which it is well entitled, although it was in reality written last, or very nearly last, of all his dramas. Here there is no skipping from country to country and from year to year, as in some of the Romances: all is compact and coherent, and the action is comprehended within a few hours; every part of the action is in easy and graceful motion; every scene contributes to the effect of the whole, and nothing could be dispensed with; the language is sustained at a high level throughout;

and, every here and there, a passage occurs of matchless beauty or sublimity.

It is the story of Prospero, Duke of Milan, supplanted in the government of his dukedom by his scheming brother Antonio, who, with the assistance of the King of Naples, has driven him from his throne and country, committing him, along with the infant named Miranda, to a rotten and crazy vessel, in the expectation that they will never more be heard of. But, cast by destiny on a desert-island, Prospero has lived till his daughter has grown to ripe girlhood or the verge of womanhood, when, one day, his enemies—namely, his brother Antonio and the King of Naples, with Ferdinand, the son of the latter, and a number of courtiers-suffer shipwreck on the coast of this island and gather in various groups to the place where Prospero lives, who, having them completely in his power, recovers his dukedom, while his daughter becomes the wife of Ferdinand and, thus, the future Queen of Naples.

Prospero, while still at Milan, had been a great student. In fact, it was preoccupation with his studies which lost him his dukedom. When forced to quit his country, he was able to take his books with him, and, in the loneliness of the desert-island, he became a great magician. By his art he delivered the island from the witch Sycorax and compelled her misshapen offspring Caliban to become his servant.

This half-man, half-beast is one of the strangest products of Shakspeare's fancy. His name is said to be formed from the word "cannibal"; and the idea of so odd a creature is said to have been suggested by certain books of travel, published in Shakspeare's day, which contained accounts of savage men seen in remote corners of the globe. In Caliban, Shakspeare anticipates much which is occupying the attention of our age about the development of the man out of the brute. Apparently his opinion was, that the last thing to be developed would be the moral sentiment; for Caliban has brains and cunning; but he has learned language only to curse, he is haunted by perpetual terror, and his talent is employed in shirking work and plotting mischief. Shakspeare was no believer in "the noble savage ".

Prospero has established close relations with the opposite section of the spirit-world; and the special instrument of his will is Ariel, whom he has delivered from the power of the witch Sycorax and thus bound to his service with the force of gratitude. This is one of Shakspeare's most delightful creations. He is not quite so light and airy as Puck in A MidsummerNight's Dream, but he belongs to the same family. He has more intellect; and he flies like lightning hither and thither along the threads of the magician's webs of purpose, keeping every portion in order and making all work to one central point. It turns out