"Fit for bloody villainy, Apt, liable, to be employed in danger.” It would be worse than idle to attempt any lengthened comment on that most beautiful scene between Arthur and Hubert, which carries on the main action of this play. Hazlitt has truly said, "If anything ever was penned, heart-piercing, mixing the extremes of terror and pity, of that which shocks and that which soothes the mind, it is this scene." When Hubert gives up his purpose, we do not the less feel that "The bloody fingers' ends of John” have not been washed of their taint :"Your uncle must not know but you are dead," tells us, at once, that no relenting of John's purpose had prompted the compassion of Hubert. Pleased, therefore, are we to see the retribution beginning. The murmurs of the peers at the "once again crown'd,"-the lectures which Pembroke and Salisbury read to their sovereign,-are but the preludes to the demand for "the enfranchisement of Then come the dissembling of Arthur." John, "We cannot hold mortality's strong hand,”— and the bitter sarcasms of Salisbury and Pembroke: "Indeed we fear'd his sickness was past cure. Indeed we heard how near his death he was, Before the child himself felt he was sick." "This must be answer'd" is as a knell in John's ears. Throughout this scene the king is prostrate before his nobles;-it is the prostration of guilt without the energy which too often accompanies it. Contrast the scene with the unconquerable intellectual activity of Richard III., who never winces at reproach, seeing only the success of his crimes and not the crimes themselves, as, for example, his answer in the scene where his mother and the widow of Edward up braid him with his murders,— "A flourish, trumpets! strike alarums, drums! Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women Rail on the Lord's anointed." The messenger appears from France :-the mother of John is dead;-" Constance in a frenzy died;" the "powers of France" have arrived "under the Dauphin." Superstition is brought in to terrify still more the weak king, who is already terrified with "subject enemies" and "adverse foreigners." The "prophet of Pomfret " and the "five moons" affright him as much as the consequences of "young Arthur's death." He turns upon Hubert in the extremity of his fears, and attempts to put upon his instrument all the guilt of that deed. Never was a more striking display of the equivocations of conscience in a weak and guilty mind. Shakspere is here the true interpreter of the secret excuses of many a criminal, who would shift upon accessories the responsibility of the deviser of a wicked act, and make the attendant circumstances more powerful for evil than the internal suggestions. When the truth is avowed by Hubert, John does not rejoice that he has been spared the perpetration of a crime, but he is prompt enough to avail himself of his altered position: "O haste thee to the peers." Again he crawls before Hubert. But the storm rolls on. The catastrophe of Arthur's death follows instantly upon the rejoicing of him who exclaimed, "Doth Arthur live?" in the hope to find a safety in his preservation upon the same selfish principle upon which he had formerly sought a security in his destruction. In a few simple lines we have the sad dramatic story of Arthur's end :— "The wall is high; and yet will I leap down:Good ground, be pitiful, and hurt me not!— There's few, or none, do know me; if they did, This ship-boy's semblance hath disguised me quite. I am afraid; and yet I'll venture it." his characters and situations to the empire How marvellously does Shakspere subject all of common sense! The Arthur of the old play, after receiving his mortal hurt, makes a long oration about his mother. The great dramatist carries on the now prevailing feeling of the audience by one pointed line: "O me! my uncle's spirit is in these stones." scene. If any other recollection were wanting, these | It is this instinctive justice in Faulconbridge, simple words would make us feel that John was as surely the murderer of Arthur, when the terrors of the boy drove him to an inconsiderate attempt to escape from his prison, as if the assassin, as some have represented, rode with him in the dim twilight by the side of a cliff that overhung the sea, and suddenly hurled the victim from his horse into the engulfing wave; or as if the king tempted him to descend from his prison at Rouen at the midnight hour, and, instead of giving him freedom, stifled his prayers for pity in the waters of the Seine. It is thus that we know the anger of "the distemper'd lords "is a just anger, when, finding Arthur's body, they kneel before that "ruin of sweet life," and vow to it the "worship of revenge." The short scene between Salisbury, Pembroke, the Bastard, and Hubert, which immediately succeeds, is as spirited and as spirited and characteristic as anything in the play. Here we see "the invincible knights of old" in their most elevated characterfiery, implacable, arrogant, but still drawing their swords in the cause of right, when that cause was intelligible and undoubted. The character of Faulconbridge here rises far above what we might have expected from the animal courage and the exuberant spirits of the Faulconbridge of the former acts. The courage is indeed here beyond all doubt: "Thou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury: If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot, But we were scarcely prepared for the rush "If thou didst but consent To this most cruel act, do but despair, That ever spider twisted from her womb Put but a little water in a spoon, this readiness to uplift the strong hand in what he thinks a just quarrel,—this abandonment of consequences in the expression of his opinions,-that commands our sympathies for him whenever he appears upon the The motives upon which he acts are entirely the antagonist motives by which John is moved. We have, indeed, in Shakspere none of the essay-writing contrasts of smaller authors. We have no asserters of adverse principles made to play at see-saw, with reverence be it spoken, like the Moloch and Belial of Milton. But, after some reflection upon what we have read, we feel that he who leapt into Coeur-de-lion's throne, and he who hath "a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face," are as opposite as if they were the formal personifications of subtlety and candour, cowardice and courage, cruelty and kindliness. The fox and the lion are not more strongly contrasted than John and Faulconbridge; and the poet did not make the contrast by accident. And yet with what incomparable management are John and the Bastard held together as allies throughout these scenes. In the onset the Bastard receives honour from the hands of John,— and he is grateful. In the conclusion he sees his old patron, weak indeed and guilty, but surrounded with enemies, and he will not be faithless. When John quails before the power of a spiritual tyrant, the Bastard stands by him in the place of a higher and a better nature. He knows the dangers that surround his king :— "All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out But Dover castle: London hath received, But no dangers can daunt his resolution :- The very necessity for these stirring words | annihilated. "A voluntary zeal, and unurged faith," to the invader, bewail their revolt, and "That, for the health and physic of our right, "Poison'd,-ill fare;-dead, forsook, cast off: Causes and consequences, separated in the proper history by long digressions and tedious episodes, are brought together. The attributed murder of Arthur lost John all the inheritances of the house of Anjou, and allowed the house of Capet to triumph in his overthrow. Out of this grew a larger ambition, and England was invaded. The death of Arthur and the events which marked the last days of John were separated in their cause and effect by time only, over which the poet leaps. It is said that a man who was on the point of drowning saw, in an instant, all the events of his life in connection with his approaching end. So sees the poet. It is his to bring the beginnings and the ends of events into that real union and dependence which even the philosophical historian may overlook in tracing their course. It is the poet's office to preserve a unity of action; it is the historian's to show a consistency of progress. In the chroniclers we have manifold changes of fortune in the life of John after Arthur of Brittany has fallen. In Shakspere Arthur of Brittany is To make his bleak winds kiss my parched at once revenged. The heartbroken mother lips, And comfort me with cold:-I do not ask you I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait, The interval of fourteen years between the and her boy are not the only sufferers from double courses. The spirit of Constance is appeased by the fall of John. The Niobe of a Gothic age, who vainly sought to shield her child from as stern a destiny as that with which Apollo and Artemis pursued the daughter of Tantalus, may rest in peace. 'A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM' was first | Fisher. It is difficult to say whether both of printed in 1600. In that year there appeared two editions of the play :-the one published by Thomas Fisher, a bookseller; the other by James Roberts, a printer. The differences between these two editions are very slight. Steevens, in his collection of twenty plays, has reprinted that by Roberts, giving the variations of the edition by these were printed with the consent of the author, or whether one was genuine and the other pirated. If the entries at Stationers' Hall may be taken as evidence of a proprietary right, the edition by Fisher is the genuine one, 'A booke called A Mydsomer Nyghte Dreame' having been entered by him Oct. 8, 1600. One thing is perfectly dar clear to us that the original of these editions, whichever it might be, was printed from a genuine copy, and carefully superintended through the press. The text appears to us as perfect as it is possible to be, considering the state of typography in that day. There is one remarkable evidence of this. The prologue to the interlude of the Clowns, in the fifth act, is purposely made inaccurate in its punctuation throughout. The speaker" does not stand upon points." It was impossible to have effected the object better than by the punctuation of Roberts's edition; and this is precisely one of those matters of nicety in which a printer would have failed, unless he had followed an extremely clear copy, or his proofs had been corrected by an author or an editor. The play was not reprinted after 1600, till it was collected into the folio of 1623; and the text in that edition differs in few instances, and those very slight ones, from that of the preceding quartos. Malone has assigned the composition of 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream' to the year 1594. We are not disposed to object to this, —indeed we are inclined to believe that he has pretty exactly indicated the precise year, as far as it can be proved by one or two allusions which the play contains. But we entirely object to the reasons upon which Malone attempts to show that it was one of our author's "earliest attempts in comedy." He derives the proof of this from "the poetry of this piece, glowing with all the warmth of a youthful and lively imagination, the many scenes which it contains of almost continual rhyme, the poverty of the fable, and want of discrimination among the higher personages." Malone would place 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream' in the same rank as 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona,' 'Love's Labour's Lost,' and The Comedy of Errors;' and he supposes all of them written within a year or two of each other. We have no objection to believe that our poet wrote 'A MidsummerNight's Dream' when he was thirty years of age, that is in 1594. But it so far exceeds the three other comedies in all the higher attributes of poetry, that we cannot avoid repeating here the opinion which we have before expressed, that he had written these for the stage before his twenty-fifth year, when he was a considerable shareholder in the Blackfriars company, some of them, perhaps, as early as 1585, at which period the vulgar tradition assigns to Shakspere-a husband, a father, and a man conscious of the possession of the very highest order of talent-the dignified office of holding horses at the theatre door. The year 1594 is, as nearly as possible, the period where we would place A Midsummer-Night's Dream,' with reference to our strong belief that Shakspere's earliest plays must be assigned to the commencement of his dramatic career; and that two or three even of his great works had then been given to the world in an unformed shape, subsequently worked up to completeness and perfection. But it appears to us a misapplication of the received meaning of words to talk of "the warmth of a youthful and lively imagination" with reference to 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream,' and the Shakspere of thirty. We can understand these terms to apply to the unpruned luxuriance of the 'Venus and Adonis;' but the poetry of this piece, the almost continual rhyme, and even the poverty of the fable, are to us evidences of the very highest art having obtained a perfect mastery of its materials after years of patient study. Of all the dramas of Shakspere there is none more entirely harmonious than 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream.' All the incidents, all the characters, are in perfect subordinaation to the will of the poet. Throughout the whole piece," says Malone, "the more exalted characters are subservient to the interests of those beneath them." Precisely so. An unpractised author-one who had not "a youthful and lively imagination" under perfect control,-when he had got hold of the Theseus and Hippolyta of the heroic ages, would have made them ultraheroical. They would have commanded events, instead of moving with the supernatural influence around them in harmony and proportion. Theseus, the associate of Hercules, is not engaged in any adventure worthy of his rank or reputation, nor is he in reality an agent throughout the play." Mr. Hallam has, as might be expected, taken a much more correct view of this question than Malone. He places 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream' among the early plays; but, having mentioned 'The Comedy of Errors,' 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona,' 'Love's Labour's Lost,' and 'The Taming of the Shrew,' he adds, " Its superiority to those we have already mentioned affords some presumption that it was written after them."* Precisely so. An immature poet, again, if | power of the English language for purposes the marvellous creation of Oberon and Ti- of poetry, that composition would be the tania, and Puck, could have entered into such 'Midsummer-Night's Dream.' This wona mind, would have laboured to make the derful model, which, at the time it appeared, power of the fairies produce some strange must have been the commencement of a and striking events. But the exquisite great poetical revolution, and which has beauty of Shakspere's conception is, that, never ceased to influence our higher poetry, under the supernatural influence, "the from Fletcher to Shelley,—was, according to human mortals" move precisely according Malone, the work of "the genius of Shakto their respective natures and habits. De- speare, even in its minority.” metrius and Lysander are impatient and revengeful;-Helena is dignified and affectionate, with a spice of female error; Hermia is somewhat vain and shrewish. And then Bottom! Who but the most skilful artist could have given us such a character? Of him Malone says, "Shakspeare would naturally copy those manners first with which he was first acquainted. The ambition of a theatrical candidate for applause he has happily ridiculed in Bottom the weaver." A theatrical candidate for applause! Why, Bottom the weaver is the representative of the whole human race. His confidence in his own power is equally profound, whether he exclaims, "Let me play the lion too;" or whether he sings alone, "that they shall hear I am not afraid;" or whether, conscious that he is surrounded with spirits, he cries out, with his voice of authority, "Where's Peas-blossom?" In every situation Bottom is the same, the same personification of that selflove which the simple cannot conceal, and the wise can with difficulty suppress. Malone thus concludes his analysis of the internal evidence of the chronology of 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream:'. drama, of which the principal personages are thus insignificant, and the fable thus meagre and uninteresting, was one of our author's earliest compositions, does not, therefore seem a very improbable conjecture; nor are the beauties with which it is embellished inconsistent with this supposition." The beauties with which it is embellished include, of course, the whole rhythmical structure of the versification. The poet has here put forth all his strength. We venture to offer an opinion that, if any single composition were required to exhibit the "That a 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream' is mentioned by Francis Meres in 1598. The date of the first publication of the play, therefore, in 1600, does not tend to fix its chronology. Nor is it very material to ascertain whether it preceded 1598 by three, or four, or five years. The state of the weather in 1593 and 1594, when England was visited with peculiarly ungenial seasons, may have suggested Titania's beautiful description in Act II., Scene 2. The allusion of two lines in Act V. is by no means so clear :"The thrice three Muses mourning for the death Of learning, late deceased in beggary." This passage was once thought to allude to the death of Spenser. But the misfortunes and the death of Spenser did not take place till 1599. Even if the allusion were inserted between the first production of the piece and its publication in 1600, it is difficult to understand how an elegy on the great poet could have been called "Some satire, keen and critical." T. Warton suggested" that Shakspeare here, * Literature of Europe,' vol. ii. p. 387. P |