absent at appropriate junctures,-as to fancy that we follow them from spot to spot in thought, and are enabled to observe their procedure with the eyes of our spirit-that spirit, that intelligence, which is put into activity by the dramatist's skill. Shakespeare himself (in his Chorus to "Henry V.") tells us the amount of credence he demands for his dramatic universe :

"Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts,
And make imaginary puissance.”

That "imaginary puissance," taken in the sense of power to imagine, it is, which he evokes, and which his art elicits. The sticklers for the classical unities ask that we shall believe improbabilities, because they invest them with certain rational conventionalities; Shakespeare asks us to "entertain conjecture" of beautiful ideal-realities, by scope and strength of fancy. The strict unity-mongers require the faith of reason; Shakespeare, the faith of imagination. But the former require the faith of reason while impairing belief by the very adherences to rationality they preserve; Shakespeare requires the faith of imagination while inspiring belief by the appeal he makes to our poetic creed.

Shakespeare's comprehensive might was large in his treatment of the unities, as in all else. His plans were as vast as his details were accurate. Not only will he bear the minutest analytical inspection and dissection, but he sustains the widest synthetical survey. His characters are not only susceptible of the closest investigation,-cach smallest part being as carefully finished in individuality of structure as the organs of animalcula in their exquisite formation and inexhaustible variety, -but his dramas, as wholes, are wonders of consistent art. Every play in itself possesses a grand moral unity of design. Thus "Hamlet" may be said to depict the relations of the human soul with divine order; "Macbeth," the struggles and tortures of ambition; "Lear," the principle of Will; "Othello," candour and virtue victims to deception and malignity, but triumphant in their immortal intrinsic natures; "Romeo and Juliet," Love in its beauty, Hate in its ugliness and misery. Even his comedies contain this moral unity of design: for instance, "As You Like It" exhibits the cheerfulness of

goodness, the sunshine and out-door freedom of the spirit in those who are pure-hearted and innocent; "Twelfth Night," the romance of enamoured fancy, the sickness of self-love, the health of geniality; "All's Well," the superior worth of nature's aristocracy and natural rights to feudal and conventional assumptions and exactions; "Much Ado," brilliancy of wit at fault in discernment, while obtuseness of folly blunders upon revelation; "The Merchant of Venice," the several operations of justice, injustice, and chance; and so on, through all his fine plays, serious or comic,-for in Shakespeare's gayest mirth there is ever earnest purpose, as in his severest tragedy there is ever divinely tender feeling. Guizot, with excellent acumen, makes Unity of Impression the great law of Shakespeare's Dramatic Art. He says:-"We must never forget, that unity, in Shakespeare's view, consists in one dominant idea, which, reproducing itself under various forms, incessantly produces, continues, and redoubles the impression."

In tracing the career of his characters we are affected as we are in watching the progress of real beings; we feel that deep and sympathetic commiseration,-that compassion unmixed with contempt,-with which we observe the mistakes of our fellow-creatures, our mortal brethren; he teaches us that large toleration for human imperfection, while revealing to us its shortcomings, by showing at the same time its innate yearnings after good. In proof of the intense reality with which he invests his creations, and the thorough way in which he penetrates us with a sense of their actuality-we find ourselves speaking of Shakespeare's people's souls; we say the soul of Hamlet, or the soul of Macbeth, is thus or thus affected.

His productions afford ever-fresh field for speculation; in reading them we are always conscious of a something beyond our fathoming-as in contemplating Nature herself. It is not that Shakespeare-any more than Nature-is dark to our perusal; but that there is a high-reaching elevation of idea suggested in his page, as in hers, that lifts the spirit into more than earthly soarings.

Complaint has been made that Shakespeare is occasionally obscure; but sentences that present difficulties to some minds,

offer none to others. For our own part, we are unable to find incomprehensibilities in many of Shakespeare's phrases that seem to have proved stumblingblocks with some of the commentators. The reason may be this: literal and matter-of-fact judges, who require all to be clearly made out, thoroughly explained and stated, cannot make sufficient allowance for Shakespeare's style, which is often of large scope in condensed form. He frequently uses a curiously elliptical style; and his phrases then wear (to the literalminded) somewhat the effect of that peculiarly occult meaning couched beneath superficial appearance of mistake, which constitutes the "Irish Bull." For instance, Ben Jonson ridiculed Shakespeare's having made Julius Cæsar say, "Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause." In the first place, Ben Jonson quotes the passage falsely,* like many a fault-finder, warping the point he picks out for blame; and, in the next place, it requires little perception to descry the real gist of the phrase, allowing for elliptical expression. This is the exact quotation :—

"Know, Cæsar doth not wrong; nor without cause
Will he be satisfied."

It is perfectly comprehensible,—and most characteristic. The tone of self-assertion and irresponsible autocratic will in the sentence is precisely that which a despotic-minded man, like "mightiest Julius," would use. In considering Shakespeare's words, it is all-important to bear in thought into whose mouth he puts them ;-characteristic utterance is everything with him. Differently from every other writer,-in this, as in all other respects, Shakespeare himself cannot be known through his

*Exculpation has been attempted, by suggesting that possibly the words originally stood as Jonson gave them, and that Shakespeare may have altered them on hearing that Jonson had ridiculed the phrase as it at first stood; but how comes it that Ben Jonson not only quoted the sentence itself differently from what it now is, but that he made it the reply to a speech which does not occur at all there? The above endeavour to excuse Jonson is made by Mr Craik, whose "English of Shakespeare, Illustrated in a Philosophical Commentary on his Julius Cæsar," is a book of much value to the Shakespearian student. Though so verbally precise, Mr Craik has none of the formality often accompanying precision. Together with his discernment in literality, he possesses poetical appreciation; as when, in citing and defending one of Shakespeare's bold beauties of diction, he observes, "These audacities of language are of the very soul of poetry."

principal writings; his own individuality of nature is so completely merged in the characters he draws, that it cannot be deduced with any satisfactory correctness. Precisely because he was the greatest of all dramatists, and drew other men's characters with such consummate discrimination, he revealed nothing of his own identity. While he wrote, he was the person he delineated; and while perfectly defining every touch that characterised them, he necessarily excluded every point that might have coloured it with his own peculiarities. No writer, perhaps, ever so thoroughly got rid of self in writing; and this is one of the reasons of his excellence in dramatic composition. His very indifference to having his productions carefully put forth to the world in print, originates in this absence of self in what he did. He thought more of making his works good, than of letting them appear good. He himself says for himself in one of his sonnets

"In so profound abysm I throw all care
Of others' voices, that my adder's sense
To critic and to flatterer stopped are."

This absence of self-consciousness it was which gifted Shakespeare with his amazing power of appropriateness and forbearance in writing, amidst all his luxuriance and exuberance of imagination. In painting a scene, he was never anxious. to put forth the whole of his resources,—to show how abundantly he could depict it; he was intent only on depicting it faithfully, truly, naturally. This is why he never overdoes anything; this is why he has no exaggeration, no pedantry. Where Ben Jonson, for instance, is laboured, diffuse, and prolix, Shakespeare is correct, concise, forcible. Where other authors are verbal, he is vital; his words are warm life-blood, pulsing from the very hearts of his speakers. If Shakespeare wished to paint a parting, he did not heap up all the most extravagant phrases of passionate regret-parting in abstract; but he painted each particular parting with just the amount of tenderness and pathos proper to the character and individuality of those taking leave: witness the several partings of Romeo and Juliet, Troilus and Cressida, Posthumus and Imogen, Proteus and Julia,-all lovers' partings, yet how exquisitely distinguished one from the other. From the

sentences uttered in these four little scenes, we might clearly gather the respective characters of the four couples who figure in them. This is why there is no rant in Shakespeare. He was not bent on displaying his own ability and mastery of language,—which anxiety leads to the overcharged tirades of other writers; but he was solely occupied with the mode of speech of those beings he made talk; he thought of their diction, not his capability of penning it. In his moderation and discretion, Shakespeare is as effective as in his energy and elaboration, for they are each always meetly employed. This absence of self-impression accounts, too, for the magical insight into the desires of others-his spectators or readerswhich Shakespeare possessed. He seemed always to know how much they wished revealed, how much they wished shown, to satisfy their interest in his stories. Many of his closing scenes are long-though never tedious-on this principle; they seem adapted to the contenting of that craving to know all about the personages in whom the spectators have been feeling interested, which grown spectators share with children, who are never contented without explanatory windings-up to the tales they have been listening to. Witness his last scenes of "Cymbeline," of "As You Like It," of "Merchant of Venice," and others; which linger on with the exquisite sense of mutual pleasure in satisfactory explanation in conclusion that subsists between the finest authors and their readers. Shakespeare, though the most concentrated of writers, was also the most ample ;-where condensed expression, or where copiousness was respectively needed.

There are three passages in the last scene of "Cymbeline' which afford instances of those peculiarly elliptical sentences used by Shakespeare,—especially at the close of his dramas, where he avoids diffuseness on those points which are known to the spectators, but which require explanation to the characters of the story. The first of these passages is

"One sand another

Not more resembles that sweet rosy lad

Who died, and was Fidele.

The second is

"Our wicked queen;

Whom heavens, in justice, both on her and hers,
Have laid most heavy hand."