who approaches him in this respect. Ben Jonson, one of the most scientific of designers, is far below him in all that relates to the more important parts and real constitution of a play. The conduct of his plots is generally admirable, and the conduct of his dramatis persone absolutely faultless. There is no playing at cross purposes, no confusion. Everything is in due order, in due subordination. There are many voices, but they are "matched in mouth like bells," each under each. In the construction of a drama, the dovetailing of the scenes, or even the probability of the story, is not of the highest moment. It is the entire harmony of the play, its completeness within itself (the story or premises being admitted), that constitutes its main charm and merit: it is, in fact, the relation which one character bears to another; the due blending of thoughts and incidents; one voice answering to another; one thought or event following another, like the consequence the cause; no object standing out, staring without meaning, disjointed, unallied to the rest; but all rounded off, classed, arranged: the light deepening into shadow, the dark. ness gradually emerging into light.

§ 4. In regard to the characters drawn by Shakespeare, I do not recollect one in his undoubted dramas, that is not at once true, consistent, and complete. Our great poet never squares or clips a character to suit any preconceived theory; but permits each to do his best (or worst) as nature or education may inspire. "Accommodate," he says, "is a good word;" but to accommodate or remould nature in order to fit a theory or demonstrate a problem, is a sacrifice of truth to conjecture; and Shakespeare in essentials never sacrificed truth. Fault has been found with the construction of some of his plays-as with the "WINTER'S TALE," for instance, or the fairy dramas-for doing violence to probability or the unities; but let the characters upon whom he has set his stamp once appear, and I defy the critic not to admit that every one is wrought out of the true metal Not one of them is a mask, or a voice, or a chorus; but a man complete. The words he utters belong to himself, and to no one besides. Even the change which we observe to take place in some of his dramatic personages, is one of the strongest proofs of their completeness and truth. That fluctuation which to an ordinary writer might seem to be a deviation from character, he knew to be one of its constituent parts: for the condition of man is complex and various. He is not built up by nature as a case or sounding-board for one particular note, grave or sharp; but for the whole diapason. To draw a character who shall stand up as the stiff representative of a single virtue, is to betray a woful ignorance of humanity. The virtues, as well as the vices, of man never come singly, but in troops. They abide with us, perhaps, but they are not rigid or inflexible. On the contrary, they change and are modified by many causes. The brave man of to-day may, like Macbeth, be a coward to-morrow; and the nerves of a Richard, who was yesterday foremost in the battle, may to-day be shaken by a dream.

In the mechanical drama (so to speak)-in that which is formed without flexibility or variety in the characters or verse, like some of the French tragedies-there is a regular progress of puppets from the beginning to the end; the same voice of the same ventriloquist guiding them on, without fluctuation or pause. Nothing disturbs the monotony and weariness of the scene; nothing elevates or depresses the dialogue, which is always in alt. One personage is a tyrant, another a lover, a third a warrior, a fourth a friend; and each delivers himself duly of the maxims which belong to the virtue or passion which he is thus engaged to represent. They are all, in short, abstractions, and not men. Now, Shakes. peare's characters are not abstractions, nor are they mere sections of character. They

are entire and complete. Neither are they mere characters standing alone or aloof. Each shows the relation he bears to others, and how he is operated upon by them. So Coriolanus, Macbeth, and Othello, exhibit the different phases of their character, according to the light cast upon them by the presence of other persons, or by the predominating passion of the scene. Yet the physical courage and moral weakness of Macbeth, the fierce pride and relenting affection of Coriolanus, the calm command and stormy turbulence of Othello, are qualities naturally linked to each other, and harmonise with each other: as the different events of human life are connected and reconciled by various influences; by time or age, the ingratitude of children, the depression of fortune, or other causes. Sometimes, the greater passions are more completely developed and made manifest by the introduction of trivial objects. And this, which perhaps originated in the wide sympathy of Shakespeare for all men, teaching him to despise none, is at once evidence of his supreme skill. Observe how the brutality of Caliban, and the drunken fooleries of Trinculo and Stephano, throw out in grand relief the grave majesty of Prospero, and contrast with the fresh simplicity of Miranda. So the stilted verse of the Players gives value to the natural words of Hamlet; and the fripperies of Osrick are effective as a prologue to the tragic duel. The loose Iachimo and vulgar Cloten make us look with double respect on the chaste and lonely Imogen; and the idiotic merriment of the Fool (strangely weighed and kept down by a sort of instinctive wisdom or shrewdness) brings out the madness and sublimity of Lear; acting, by contrast, like a little light, which developes the darkness of the region around.

How Shakespeare arrived at his conclusions, and mastered the difficulties of character, is a subject that has not yet been fathomed. Perhaps he could not himself have explained it so as to make it intelligible to all. Was it intuition, experience, or meditation, that led to those happy creations which no one has equalled? He painted, seemingly, partly from individual nature, but not wholly. His characters are not copies of particular men or women, for they have the general qualities which belong to their class. Neither are they abstractions (as we have said) of any vice or virtue, for they sometimes abound with humours and infirmities not often found in company with it. Perhaps he may have sketched from persons whom he had seen, and made up what seemed to be wanting in them, or rather what he had had no opportunity of discovering, out of his knowledge of what belonged to human nature; or he illustrated certain qualities of the mind which are usually or frequently found together, after studying instances of individual nature.

If Shakespeare ever selected a single passion as the subject for tragedy (which I doubt), he at least qualified it, and forced it to bend to circumstances, to temperament, to education, or other antagonist causes. Moreover, he surrounded its representative with personages of a different order, opposite or subordinate; and by these means relieved his drama from the bareness and monotony which would otherwise have been inevitable. Thus, Othello is not simply a jealous man, nor is Macbeth merely ambitious. The first is predisposed for his fate by his tropical birth and his martial calling; the other is by nature easy, speculative, and infirm. In each case, the master-passion is not in the commencement obvious. It is dormant, but capable of being awakened into a power that becomes resistless.

The error of some writers of fiction has been that they have taken a cardinal vice, and severing it from all qualities that might have attended it, have left it single and unsupported, the sole end and object of the play. Others have smoothed down the

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Sometimes the historian has led
Such authors have seen nature

inequalities of character, for the sake of a noble outline. the way, and the dramatist has slavishly followed him. through books. Instead of this, they should have looked directly at man himself, examined him, and studied him, as they would a wonder never yet sufficiently known. It is quite clear, that no one can ever become a great dramatist who shall take the world "upon trust."

As bearing upon this part of the subject, I may be excused for devoting a paragraph to the question of "the learning of Shakespeare." Several writers have perplexed themselves and their readers in endeavouring to ascertain the amount of Shakespeare's learning. In itself, it is a matter inexpressibly unimportant. It is of no importance to us, or to his own fame. Could the precise amount of his learning be weighed out in critical scales (a thing quite impossible), it would neither diminish nor add to his merit. He must rest content, crowned with bays, instead of the doctor's cap.

It is possible, I think, that a man may be encumbered by too much learning: not that he is likely to know too much either of a language or a people; but that, together with the advantages which accompany learning, there present themselves too many models for imitation. One cannot read Homer, without admiring his grand and masculine style; nor Dante, without being impressed by that deep, glowing, intense earnestness which carried him on to the end of his extraordinary task. It is necessary to the performance of an original work that a man should be thrown upon his own resources; that he should not be beset by the temptation of following in the track of others, whom he cannot but admire, and whom it is so much easier to imitate than surpass. The indolence of human nature is sometimes found allied to its ambition; and the man who desires fame, or wealth, or power, however he may possess the active principle, sufficient to succeed in any case, is yet ready enough to accomplish his end with as little expense of thought or labour as he can.

It is, I believe, this misfortune (namely, the multitude of models), that impedes the advancement of modern painters. They are oppressed and bewildered by the abundance and magnificence of the Italian schools. They stumble over the statues of antiquity, when they should be taking their way apart, and seeking the true road to the summit of the hill of Fame. Some of the works of the Carracci, of Dominichino, and Guido, are wonderful for colour and effect. Yet they always force upon us the conviction that they would not have been what they were, but for the excellence of preceding painters. They would have been worse, or better.

Luckily for Shakespeare, although he had some predecessors in the drama, there was no one sufficiently great to induce him to follow in his track. His early and casual imitations of Marlowe were soon abandoned. This was to be expected; for every poet has, I imagine, begun his career by being in some degree an imitator. The scale and alphabet of his art being already existing, he consults and uses them for a short time; casting them away as the consciousness of his own power becomes better known. Thus Shakespeare's genius speedily rose above all aids and entanglements, and showed itself, strong, original, and triumphant. It enabled him to look down upon the Roman times, and upon the age of the Plantagenets, as from a pinnacle. He did not become, as the more learned Jonson did, a transcriber from Cicero or the Latin classics: but, adopting all that was valuable in historians and orators, he passed beyond them, and surveyed the whole Roman people, from the wars of Coriolanus to the fall of the triumvir, Antony, like one who had the

world at his feet, and who set down what he saw before him, and not what he had read translated in books.

§ 5. The plays of Shakespeare appear to divide themselves into certain classes, viz., the Historical Plays (comprising therein the English and Roman histories, and also "TROILUS AND CRESSIDA," which is allied to history); the Comedies; and the Tragedies; to which, perhaps, may be added a miscellaneous class, consisting of those dramas which are founded on fairy mythology, and those in which neither tragedy nor comedy can be said to prevail.

In the Historical Plays, one is first struck by the fidelity which Shakespeare has displayed throughout all the scenes (many of them necessarily fictitious) which constitute and complete the story, and the skill with which he has disposed and managed a crowd of characters. The Roman dramas seem to us even more real than the English; but this arises from the circumstance of the former being founded on events which happened in more remote times, thus preventing us from comparing, with the same severity, the sayings and doings of the personages of the play with the manners of actual life. Of all these plays, "ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA" appears to me to stand the first. For variety of character, for grandeur of thought, for pathos, and tragic situation, and for all the "pride, pomp, and circumstance," which give effect to the stage, this may challenge comparison with any other drama. All is in the "high Roman fashion"-in the most magnificent style of tragedy. Hazlitt has said finely and characteristically (when speaking of it), that "Shakespeare's genius has spread over the whole play a richness like the overflowing of the Nile." Amongst the English historical plays, "RICHARD THE THIRD" exhibits the most intellectual and commanding character, although it has less variety than some others, and comprises few sentences of great poetical interest.

The Comedies are not mere comedies of manners, which are fleeting, but transcripts of humours, which are lasting and belong to human life. Foremost of these, must be placed the two parts of " HENRY THE FOURTH," in which, however, there is an admixture of the heroic. It is only necessary to refer to these matchless productions, to show the abundance that Shakespeare has poured into them. In the "Second Part," there are not less than twenty characters, all clearly marked out, and kept entire and distinct throughout the play. It is impossible to confound one with another. The wit of Falstaff (the most remarkable comic creation on record) illustrates both plays; whilst the chivalrous characters of Hotspur and Glendower, the gravity of Henry, the alternate compunction and levity of his son, and the whole bustle and incident of the story, render it, to all classes of auditors, a performance at all times full of interest.

There is no space here to go through the tragic and comic plays seriatim, and show their manifold wonders. They are each beyond rivalry in their way: although the tragedy is superior to the comedy, by so much as that which is serious is superior to that which is jocose. This has been already insisted upon by other writers.

But let us not forget the fairy dramas. The "TEMPEST" and the "MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM" deserve a better defender than I can hope to be. The supernatural machinery which Shakespeare has adopted in these and other plays has been decried as being little better than that of nursery fables. This, as it appears to me, is mistaking the quality and object of a play. The supernatural is a legitimate portion of the drama. It is as much so as any circumstance which we are apt to call improbable or unnatural, but which in every instance has been outdone by facts. All depends on the mode of intro

ducing the supernatural, and on the use made of it by the poet. Whatever affects the imagination, and excites the sympathies of an audience, may be pronounced fit for the stage. It is only when the childish and ignorant are wrought upon, leaving the mature mind unaffected, that the supernatural becomes absurd. It is, in short, the quantity of intellect thrown into fictions of this order, which determines their general fitness to appear before the world. Taking into consideration the mechanism and general exterior of a represented play, all plays commence as improbabilities. No one begins by being deluded. He knows at the outset that a wooden stage is before him, and that actors are about to represent a fiction. But if, with this indispensable disadvantage, the poet succeeds in exciting the sympathy of the spectator, and makes him for a while forget the humble appliances of his art, then the drama may be said to be triumphant. In reference to this subject, it should not be forgotten that many characters and effects have been brought upon the stage, which certainly never had any existence in the history of human affairs. These are as essentially opposed to fact as the fairies and ghosts of Shakespeare; and yet we do not object to them, because we say that they are "natural." But, are not Titania and Oberon natural? Is not Ariel natural? Is not Caliban natural? nay, is he not a thousand times more natural and more impressive than the pompous perfections and inflated heroes of the French stage?

I shall not attempt to classify the merits of Shakespeare's tragedies; but, as a comparison has frequently been instituted between the four great tragedies, "MACBETH," HAMLET," "OTHELLO," and "LEAR," I may venture to recur to them. In " MACBETH," it is said, there is an unity of interest, a rapidity of events, and a combination of the human and supernatural, that place it the first, in these respects, in point of excellence. "LEAR" is more sublime, I think, all human and passionate as it is, and has meanings more profound than the other, and exhibits greater variety and contrast of character. "HAMLET" beyond the rest developes and lays bare the innermost thoughts and workings of a single mind. But, to my thinking, "OTHELLO" is the most substantial and complete of all his plays. Less refined than "HAMLET," less imaginative than "MACBETH," and less terrible and impressive than "LEAR," it is, for variety and development of character. more complete than the others. "MACBETH" is chiefly a tragedy of events. There are no characters, except those of Macbeth and his awful wife. Macbeth himself, indeed, is an entire biography; and the "Lady" is grandly drawn: but otherwise the play (with deep respect be it said) is meagre in character. "LEAR"-in which we are whirled about by the passion of the scene, as the old discrowned heartbroken king is by the fury of the elements-is more loosely hung together than "OTHELLO;" and Hamlet, who at first sight appears to be more thoroughly pourtrayed than any other personage of the stage, will be found, I think, to exhibit his own thoughts, chiefly on abstract and indifferent subjects, rather than to develop his character; always the main object in dramatic fiction. In "OTHELLO," on the other hand, there are seven characters completely and thoroughly distinguished. There are Brabantio (the model of Priuli), Cassio, Roderigo, Iago, Emilia, Desdemona, "the gentle lady married to the Moor," and finally Othello, the Moor, himself; and to these must be superadded the most absorbing human interest, remarkable variety in the characters, and the most compact and natural story of any within the compass of the English drama. Shakespeare has drawn the Moor with great magnanimity. He has disdained the ordinary notes of preparation, and has gone at once to the main purpose of the play. At first view, nothing appears more unskilful and hopeless than to