inat no man ever was, or ever can be, always dignified. He knew that those subtler traits of character, which identify a man, are familiar and relaxed, pervaded with passion, and not played off with an eye to external decorum. In this respect the peculiarities of Shakespeare's genius are nowhere more forcibly illustrated than in the play we are here considering. The champions of Greece and Troy, from the hour in which their names were first recorded, had always worn a certain formality of attire, and marched with a slow and measured step. No poet, till this time, nad ever ventured to force them out of the manner which their epic creator had given them. Shakespeare first suppled their limbs, took from them the classic stiffness of their gait, and enriched them with an entire set of those attributes which might ren der them completely beings of the same species with ourselves." 31* ADDRESS PREFIXED TO THE QUARTO EDITION, 1609 A NEVER WRITER, TO AN EVER READER: NEWS ETERNAL reader, you have here a new play, never stal'd with the stage, never clapper-claw'd with the palms of the vulgar, and yet passing full of the palm comical; for it is a birth of your brain, that never undertook any thing coinical vainly and were but the vain names of comedies chang'd for the titles of commodities, or of plays for pleas, you should see all those grand censors, that now style them such vanities, flock to them for the main grace of their gravities; especially this author's comedies, that are so fram'd to the life, that they serve for the most common commentaries of all the actions of our lives, showing such a dexterity and power of wit, that the most displeased with plays are pleas'd with his comedies. And all such dull and heavy-witted worldlings as were never capable of the wit of a comedy, coming by report of them to his representations, have found that wit there that they never found in themselves, and have parted better-witted than they cane; feeling an edge of wit set upon them, more than ever they dream'd they had brain to grind it on. So much and such savored salt of wit is in his comedies, that they seem, for their height of pleasure, to be born in that sea that brought forth Venus. Amongst all there is none more witty than this; and had I time I would comment upon it, though I know it needs not, for so much as will make you think your testern well bestow'd, but for so much worth as even poor I know to be stuff'd in it. It deserves such a labour as well as the best comedy in Terence or Flautus. And believe this, that when he 18 gone, and his comedies out of sale, you will scramble fo. them, and set up a new English inquisition.' Take this for a warning, and at the peril of your pleasure's loss, and judgment's, refuse not, nor like this the less, for not being sullied with the smoky breath of the multitude; but thank fortune for the scape it hath made amongst you; since by the grand possessors' wills I believe you should have pray'd for them, rather than been pray'd. And so I leave all such to be pray'd for (for the states of their wits' healths) that will not praise it. Vale. 2 This Address, with all its conceit and affectation, has some very just and intelligent praise, and in a higher strain than any other we have that was written during the Poet's life; unless we should except a passage in Spenser's Tears of the Muses, quoted in our Introduction to The Two Gentlemen of Verona. The wri ter, whoever he might be, gives out in this place a pretty shrewd anticipation. Many things occurring in our time might be aptly quoted as answering to his forecast of "a new English inquisition;" as, for example, £130 was given a few years since for a copy of "The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York," which was the original form of The Third Part of King Henry VI. H. There is some obscurity here. The "grand possessors," we have no doubt, were the proprietors of the Globe Theatre, and the passage refers to the means they used to keep Shakespeare's plays out of print. Probably we should understand them as referring not to possessors, but to the comedies for which "a new English inquisition" was to be "set up;" the sense thus being, you should have prayed to get them, rather than have been prayed to to buy them." H. CALCHAS, a Trojan Priest, taking part with the Greeks. PANDARUS, Uncle to Cressida. MARGARELON, a bastard Son of Priam. THERSITES, a deformed and scurrilous Grecian. ALEXANDER, Servant to Cressida. Servants to Troilus, to Paris, and to Diomedes. HELEN, Wife to Menelaus. ANDROMACHE, Wife to Hector. CASSANDRA, Daughter to Priam; a Prophetess. Trojan and Greek Soldiers, and Attendants. SCENE, Troy, and the Grecian Camp before it. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. PROLOGUE.' From isles of Greece IN Troy, there lies the scene. With wanton Paris sleeps; and that's the quarrel. And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge This Prologue first appeared in the folio of 1623. Steevens took upon him, probably for this reason, to conjecture that the Prologue was not written by Shakespeare, and that perhaps the play itself was not entirely his work! Surely he was great at inferences. 2 Orgulous, proud, disdainful; orgueilleux, Fr. H. 3 แ Corresponsive and fulfilling bolts" are bolts answering to and filling full their sockets. Fulfilling was often used in that sense, as appears from our translation of the Bible. -In Caxton's History of the Destruction of Troy, the gates of the city are |