and repressed now by the divine counsels, now by the objective influences of moral causes, or the right of subjective liberty being exalted into an unlimited prerogative, and so either scale is alternately raised and depressed according as the poet places the greater weight in one or the other. Shakspeare, however, preserves them in constant equilibrium during the rapid movement of the action; the index may appear to tremble, but it nevertheless maintains the true perpendicular direction.

Lastly, it scarcely seems necessary to observe, that when I speak of the especial purity and completeness with which Shakspeare has preserved the Christian view of things, I do not leave out of the account those elements even, which many may consider unessential, and which, indeed, are not met with at all in some poets (Goethe), but in others (Calderon) appear misunderstood, or else are exhibited in a manner which is far from poetical. I allude, particularly, to the doctrine of man's universal sinfulness, and the divine. grace of redemption. They are not, indeed, to be found in Shakspeare's view of things under the form of religious edification, moral instruction, or philosophical disquisition, but still they are there, and in a mode which in every respect is truly poetical.

IV.

CRITICISMS OF SHAKSPEARE'S PLAYS.

THE true object in criticising a genuine work of art, is to facilitate a profound and complete understanding of it. If a work of art admits of being fully understood, or, in other words, of being recognized in its necessity and truth, this is at once a proof of its genuineness. True criticism, therefore, has nothing in common with that comparative anatomy which, contrasting a work with its like or unlike, measures it by some assumed standard, and metes out praise or blame by some arbitrary ideas and principles. As little connexion has it with our modern philosophical estimate, which, claiming the very highest position for itself, and having a lower one for art and religion, judges of every artistic work from the one or the other. For art, however, there is but one truth and one point of view, and that lies within itself. The several forms in which it may happen to be comprised are in themselves indifferent, and therefore of equal validity and dignity. To consider them from this or that point of view, is, in fact, to distort them, and the expressions so current in the present day, considered from this point of view, it is true this point of view is higher than that-are but so many idle ways of speaking: were they anything more, then would it follow that God and Devil, Virtue and Vice-all, in short, are equally right, necessary, and true. There is, therefore, but one position for the right consideration of a work of art, and that is from within itself. No doubt that to criticise (pive) is to distinguish, to analyse, to judge. A work of art must by all means be dissected, but this must be without any view to compare, to draw conclusions, and to form theories; but, in order to learn its structure, to search out its inmost germ of life, and from hence to trace the principle and

progress of its growth-in short, to discover and to illustrate the internal law of its organization, and the unity both of mind and life, which pervades its whole form and all its parts and members. True criticism, therefore, is essentially reproductive. The critic must accomplish the same work as the poet, but with a different instrument. What the poet first called into being by the might of his artistic phantasy, the critic must reproduce by his reflex intellect, penetrating through the given object, and exhibiting it as a thought or intuition of the creative mind, which, in the domain of art, could take this outward form alone, and no other. While the former introduces into the phonomenal world his own inward intuitions, so that the thought becomes itself a phenomenon, the latter conversely carries back the phenomenon to the thought. This reduction is, however, at the same time a production and also a reproduction, since the study and full understanding of the artistic creation necessarily bring to light the primary thought which is enveloped in it. And so also, conversely, artistic production involves in it a reduction, however unconscious and instantaneous, inasmuch as the actual world, the truth of which is exhibited in the work of art, must have shaped itself to the thought and inward intuition of the artist, before it could present itself in its new artistic form. Thus the production of the artist is likewise a reproduction. But now the particular thought which, in a work of art, becomes a phenomenon, or its ground idea, as have hitherto termed it, necessarily determines its entire form, and from it are derived the law and unity of its organisation. The business of the critic, consequently, resolves itself into the discovery and indication of this fundamental idea in every work of art that he attempts to examine.

I

Now there are two ways in which the critic may arrive at this end-the historical and the æsthetical. In the present day, the latter method is most in credit, and naturally, since so large a supply of sterling and counterfeit thoughts are daily brought to market that the value of this commodity is falling, and because every one who, by the process of assimilation, has thoroughly appropriated a little of this cheap mental aliment, considers it his own property, and proud of the possession, thinks himself qualified to have his own ideas on every subject. Historical

criticism, however, requires fundamental knowledge, and this is not so cheap an article; besides, a greater degree of stupidity is necessary to delude oneself on this point, whereas general notions are at all times vague and indeterminate. Historical criticism, for instance, considers a work of art as an historical phenomenon in the spirit of historiography, and therefore genetically, i. e. in the mode in which it arose primarily out of a particular principle under the co-operation of certain circumstances and relations; and secondarily, out of the life, mind, and character of the artist himself; and lastly, in so far as it was a production of the previous history of the art, of the general development of the human mind as shaped by the character of the times, and of the tone, tendency, or position of the latter with regard both to the past and the future. In this way the historical critic seeks to trace the ground idea of a work of art. The æsthetical method, ou the other hand, proceeds more abstractedly. It views the work of art purely in and for itself, and apart from all such references, as a special world complete in itself, and endeavours to understand it simply by the power of the cognitive thought, and out of and in itself to point out its ground idea. Both methods have their rocks and shallows. The historical critic is in danger of seeing in a particular work nothing but the special thoughts, tendencies, and interests of the age to which it belonged, and of overlooking the universal, by means of which it, at the same time, goes far beyond its age; while it is only too likely an error for him so to confound the individuality of the poet with that of his poems, as to elucidate the former, but not the latter. So, on the other hand, if the aesthetical critic introduces into a poem a view or idea which does not really lie in it, or if he takes what is called a point of view too high or too low, while the position within the same affords no true stable point, he immediately loses his living historical foundation, and the result is, critical reflections of all kinds, but not criticisms.

The best way, undoubtedly, is to combine the two methods, since, in truth, they both belong to each other. This I have endeavoured to do, so far as was possible, in the case of Shakspeare's plays. By its very nature, indeed, historical criticism, as every one must see, is only practicable to a certain extent.

In the case of Shakspeare's works, however, it is more than usually narrowed and complicated, partly because precise information of the life and individuality of the poet are wanting, and partly because, from reasons already adduced, it is impossible in every case to determine with sufficient accuracy the date of his several works; and lastly, because Shakspeare's works appear to have been but little influenced by the special tendencies, interests, and ideas of his own particular æra. Thus we are without those necessary means and connecting links, without which historical criticism cannot be successfully attempted. It must therefore confine itself to a general historical description of the state and progress of dramatic art in the sixteenth century, a general sketch of the age, and the personal character of the poet. On the other hand, in respect to the several productions of Shakspeare, it must give way to æsthetical criticism, and can only occasionally afford the latter any assistance.

It has already been frequently observed, and among others by Goethe, that, unlike other poets, Shakspeare did not choose for his several works a particular subject-matter, but that setting out with a certain idea he makes this the centre to which he adjusts his materials, and applies for its elucidation the world of history and imagination. (Shakspeare u. kein Ende Werk. Bd. 45.) This is, in fact, one of his characteristic peculiarities. While the principal works of other poets are not seldom simple variations of a single theme, exhibitions of one or other of the ideas directly prevailing in their day, with Shakspeare each piece revolves round its own axis, each is a peculiar world for itself, organized by its own laws, pervaded by one mind; and it is only when we are able to rise to the exalted position of their creative mind, that we perceive the wonderful harmony with which all these different stars combine again into one grand universal system. Only it is above all things necessary to guard against the error into which Goethe himself seems to have fallen, of supposing that the fundamental idea of a work of art could have for its subject-matter any particular religious dogma, moral law, philosophical conception, or even a mere maxim of the world or political principle. Goethe tells us, that through the whole of "Coriolanus" runs "the complaint that the populace refuse to recognise the precedence of