tremely happy in characterizing Touchstone, his idea being that, released from the artificiality of court-life and restored to the healthful influences of nature, he ceases to be a fool and becomes a man, falling genuinely in love; so that in future, instead of being a loose, irresponsible hanger-on, he will be a married man, occupying a place of his own in the system of things. Several passages like "There be three things" in the Book of Proverbs. Great passage on the Seven Ages in the last Scene of the second Act.

22. TWELFTH NIGHT. About 1600. Class B. But Mr. Masefield considers this the best English comedy. Twelfth Night or Bean-king's Festival twelfth day after Christmas: to whomsoever falls a bean, hidden in a cake, he becomes king of the revels and, choosing a queen, establishes a burlesque kingdom, in which all kinds of fun and frolic, including games of chance, are carried on. Reason why this name given to play not very clear; perhaps the subject is a Burlesque World, out of which all are at last released. Ulrici thinks the subject is the fantastical choice of partners practised on Twelfth Night. There are two sets of personages and scenes. Those around Olivia, among whom the pompous Malvolio is central, are very amusing. Viola is bright; but the "little villain" Maria is the gem. Sir Toby a very modern character. The Duke is a lover of music and speaks of it in an accent of his

own.

Puritanism satirised in Malvolio. The whole is a comedy of errors, and perhaps there is no further design than the unravelling of these "Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges" (near the end of last Act), and deposits all the characters in their own places. Sir Sidney Lee considers this and the two preceeding plays Shakspeare's "three most perfect essays in comedy".

Class A. The

23. JULIUS CÆSAR. About 1601. Class A. subject is the Portraiture of a Man, this being, however, not Cæsar, but Brutus; see it expressed at the very end of the play :

His life was gentle; and the elements

So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, "This was a man!"

Like Prince Hal, Brutus is one of Shakspeare's prime favourites, sincere, truthful, unsuspicious, placable; see his motives for the murder of Cæsar in the first Scene of the second Act. The execution is as perfect as that of the Sistine Madonna: not a morsel of superfluity; e.g., Cassius' discourse on where the sun rises is an indication of the pedant, who does not sleep o'nights, and the rushing-in of the poet, in the third Scene of the fourth Act, to give his advice, hints the kind of elements which have found their way into the army of the enthusiasts. Brutus' revolt was the work

of bookish men, even Cassius being a philosopher; but the fruits fall to the men of action. Coleridge says that the scene between Brutus and Cassius, in the third Scene of the fourth Act, is one of those which convince him that Shakspeare was superhuman. Yet Antony's speech is greater still. This play should be read along with Antony and Cleopatra. The mob as fickle as in Coriolanus.

24. HAMLET.

1602 or 1604. Class A.

The subject is the Contrast between Ideal and Real. Goethe's idea, in the criticism of this play in Wilhelm Meister, is the right one: an artistic nature, intending a life of pure, independent creation, summoned to a practical task, for which it proves to be unfit. The execution is full of passages affording opportunities to actors, with whom it is, therefore, popular; but it is not totus, teres atque rotundus, like Julius Cæsar or The Tempest. There is a tendency to verbiage; and it is absurd to suppose that any actors would have played such a piece as the interlude in such a court at such a time. Nevertheless, the verdict of the world, giving to this drama the foremost place, is no doubt just. In the same way, there are plays of Goethe more immaculate than Faust.

25. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. About 1603 or 1609. Class C. The subject is War with the Gilt off. The madness of Greece, in wasting its resources on Helen

of Troy, is exhibited in miniature in the frenzy of Troilus for Cressida. Love is here only a sensual passion and a mad pursuit, exciting men to their ruin for nothing. It is the same view as is set forth in the second section of the Sonnets. Ulrici supposes a satire on the revival of antiquity and on Ben Jonson. The heroes of Troy were only powerful brutes; observe the horribly vulgar way in which Hector is slain by Achilles. The Greeks are at bottom more barbarous than the Trojans. In the minds of Pandar and Thersites love and war are imaged with all the chivalry and romance absent. But even Ulysses, who looks from a higher level, has to acknowledge the baseness and brutality; he at once penetrates Cressida, and, therefore, he assists at the disillusionment of Troilus. At the end of the first Scene, in the fourth Act, Diomedes puts the whole case with brutal plainness. The language and the entire treatment gave an extraordinary impression of power, capable of wielding any subject in any manner.

26. OTHELLO. About 1604. Class A. The subject is Marriage. In spite of Ulrici, I think Shakspeare intended in this play to expound the rationality which underlies conventionalism. Marriage where there is difference of age, station and race, is likely to prove unfortunate, even though the favoured party have, like Othello, virtue and services. His disadvantages

make him jealous; the Moorish nature, held down by virtue, reasserts itself. Iago is almost the hero; and then the play would be a history of selfishness. In Iago's speeches extraordinary clearness and vigour. He is a thorough disbeliever in human nature, especially in woman; but Emilia, by turning upon her husband at last, proves him mistaken. Iago to be compared with Milton's Satan and Goethe's Mephistopheles. Desdemona is like one of Thackeray's women, utterly lost in the man she loves; something exquisitely touching in her inability to believe in any woman's unfaithfulness. Frequent references to drunkenness, as in Macbeth.

27. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 1603 or 1604. Class B. The subject is Pharisaism. The title is explained in the Duke's speech at the close of the third Act:

He who the sword of Heaven will bear
Should be as holy as severe.

Shame to him whose cruel striking

Kills for faults of his own liking!

Sensual sin in every degree. The execution is of sombre magnificence, and there is a world of character: Angelo in the centre, the dazzling purity of Isabella, the levity of Lucio, the mild wisdom of the Duke. The expedient in which Mariana is a tool occurs also in All's Well That Ends Well; and in both of these plays religion is prominent.