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TO SHAKESPEARE'S

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

BY

JAMES ORCHARD HALLIWELL, ESQ.
F.R.S., HON. M.R.I.A., F.S.A., F.R.A.S.,

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BIBLIOTHECA

BEGIA

MAACENSIS

CHAPTER 1.

"Aн, can I tell

The enchantment that afterwards befel?

Yet it was but a dream: yet such a dream!"

IT remains to be seen, whether the labours of former commentators have, as some imagine, exhausted all that proper and useful annotation on the works of Shakespeare, which the lapse of two centuries, and the continual change in our language and manners, have rendered necessary.

We shall not here pause to consider those, if any there be, who despise even the most minute illustration of the works of our great dramatist. The merits of those works are beyond the reach of criticism, in the common acceptation of the term, and an unanimous voice has pronounced every thing relating to them and their author, hallowed and sacred. The judgment of time has classed them amongst the noblest productions of human genius, and nothing now remains for us, but to hail them as the immortal progeny of an immortal author.

But the high privilege to which such an author may lay claim, by no means descends to his editors or commentators; and we predict, that many years must yet elapse, ere that complete inquiry into Shakespeare's language and allusions, without which

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