The old fashioned long s is responsible for an error in the line, "And every one his love feat will advance," which should surely be, as Mr. Collier's MS. corrector conjectures, "And every one his love suit will advance Unto his several mistress." "Prin. That sport best pleases that doth least know how. Where Zeale striues to content, and the contents Dies in the Zeale of that which it presents." A great deal of labor and ingenuity has been expended upon this passage, which appears thus in the original folio, and is evidently corrupted; but the correction has always seemed to me simple and obvious. Years ago, before I had seen a Variorum Shakespeare, or read a commentator, I made the following correction upon the margin of my copy; a correction, however, which my subsequent reading has not discovered to me elsewhere. But first let us define clearly the meaning of the Princess. She evidently wishes to enjoy the absurd figure which Armado, Holofernes and the rest will cut as the Worthies. She, in the words of Philo strate, when he speaks enjoying the play of the Clowns, in. the Midsummer Night's Dream, 'can find sport in their intents Extremely stretch'd, and conn'd with cruel pain." She takes a mischievous pleasure in bathos; and finds it mirth-moving, as she says in this very speech, 46 'When great things laboring, perish in their birth." It is agreed on all hands that "that," of the original, is a misprint for them; and it seems equally plain to me that no other change is necessary than to drop the final s from each line :-Thus : "That sport best pleases that doth least know how: That is, that sport is keenest which is made by the zealous efforts of ignorant people to produce a pleasing effect, which they destroy by overdoing the matter in their very zeal. "Armado. For mine own part, I breathe free breath: I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion," &c. Some idea of the incapacity of the Shakespearian commentators of the eighteenth century for their task, may be obtained from the fact that Armado's affected and quaint, but graphic and humorous figure, "I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion," seems to them incomprehensible, or at least to require explanation. Bishop Warburton, more suo, does not mince matters, but blurts out, "This has no meaning ;" and then the others labor away at elucidation. As it is with little things so it is with great. Shakespeare's sublime, far-reaching thoughts, as well as his delicate strokes of characteristic humor, are passed, unnoticed or misunderstood, by these men, while they solemnly give him credit for "very judicious remarks,” or "very apt and learned comparisons," in those portions of his plays less informed with his grand and peculiar genius. They see only the worth of that which is but the setting of the jewels of his thought. When shall his text be entirely freed from the baneful influence which they have exerted upon it? “Prin. I understand you not, my griefs are double." There is a plausibility in the change of "double" into dull, which is made in Mr. Collier's folio. But hear Mr. But hear Mr. Singer's remark upon it! "Specious, but incorrect; the error lies in the small word are, which is a misprint for see. Read, "I understand you not, my griefs see double."" Mr. Singer! Mr. Singer! A lady, and a princess too! Do you mean to insinuate that she had sought to drown her sorrows in the flowing bowl, that you make her thus see double? CORRECTION. Further reflection has convinced me, that in the line, "Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye," Act I. Sc. 1. the substitution of learning for "beauty" by Mr. Collier's folio undoubtedly restores the original word, and that study has no claim to the place. Although 'study' was used for 'learning' in Shakespeare's day, still the phrase, "teaches such study," is awkward; and there is far more similarity between the letters in 'learning' and 'beauty,' than between those in the latter word and those in 'study.' A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. The high place which the poetry of this play holds even among the poetry of Shakespeare, is admitted by all who are capable of appreciating it. There is perhaps not another production of the human mind which so has the power to make us forget the realities of life, and live for a time in the realms of fancy. Dr. Johnson, it is true, could examine and graciously approve Master William Shakespeare's 'composition' in this pedagoguish style : "Wild and fantastical as this play is, all the parts in their various modes are well written, and give the kind of pleasure which the author designed. Fairies, in his time, were much in fashion common tradition had made them familiar, and Spenser's poem had made them great." But Johnson lived, as Mr. Knight well remarks, and as the reader of this volume will be convinced before he finishes it, "in a prosaic age, and fostered in this particular the real ignorance by which he was surrounded. * It is perfectly useless to dissect such criticism: let it be a beacon to warn us, and not a 'load-star' to guide us." But universally as the poetic charm of this play has bound us of the present century, who have returned to the appreciation of Shakespeare which existed in his own day, it has been regarded by some very able critics as unfit for representation. Some have even gone so far as to say that it shows a failure of the author's constructive ability. The following remarks by Hazlitt are part of a criticism which has been often quoted: "The Midsummer Night's Dream, when acted, is converted from a delightful fiction into a dull pantomime. All that is finest in the play is lost in the representation. The spectacle was grand; but the spirit was evaporated, the genius was fled. Poetry and the stage do not agree well together. The attempt to reconcile them in this instance fails not only of effect, but of decorum. The ideal can have no place upon the stage, which is a picture without perspective: every thing there is in the foreground. That which was merely an airy shape, a dream, a passing thought, immediately becomes an unmanageable reality." This is well said; but I venture to doubt the truth of the dogma, that "poetry and the stage do not agree well together;" and to object, that although it is self-evident that "the ideal can have no place upon the stage," it will not do to apply that truth as a test to the fitness of a dramatic composition for the theatre. All characters in the higher drama are ideal; and the more truthful they are, the more nearly do they approach the true ideal, the conditions of which are the absence of all that is peculiar to the individual, with the presence of all that is characteristic of the species. Exclude any play from the stage, because the ideal is not there attainable, and you strike the whole of Shakespeare's dramatic works from the list of acting plays. Lear, Othello, Hamlet and Macbeth would go with the Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Ariel and the Fairies, in the last two, are not more impossible than the ghosts and the witches in Hamlet and Macbeth, or more ideal than the characters of Lear and Othello. It is impossible to admit the inconsistency of poetry and |