consequently unsuited for representation on the stage; or perhaps its incompleteness is owing to accident, and the conclusion may have been lost, which is far from impossible, since the "Taming of the Shrew" was first printed in 1623, and, like other of our poet's productions, was probably collected for impression from the players' rolls. Or perhaps, and this appears to me the most likely, Shakspeare may have thought it superfluous to add the termination of the induction, either as being generally known from older pieces, or because the imagination of the spectator could easily supply it. For a similar induction is found in many dramas of his day, and appears to have been a great favourite with the theatrical public. It is, however, the critic's duty to contemplate the piece as a whole, and he must therefore endeavour to supply what is wanting in his author. Fortunately he possesses two distinct indications, which taken together will inevitably guide him right in the attempt. Holberg's comedy of "Jeppe vom Berge" is constructed on an exactly similar plan. In this play the peasant-lord becomes at last so domineering and unbearable, he shews himself so incapable of moderating his strange and unusual authority, his exercise of power is so arbitrary and cruel, that an intoxicating potion is speedily given him, and he is sent back again to the dunghill from which he had been taken; where he awakes, and regards the whole as a vision or trance. A similar turn (indeed the only conceivable one that is poetically true) is taken by the old comedy (published in Steevens' "Six Old Plays," London, 1799), which, unquestionably of an earlier date, bears the same title, and treats of the same subject, as Shakspeare's piece. Both were, no doubt, founded on an anecdote related of Philip, the good Duke of Burgundy, by Heuterns, de rebus Burgundicis, Lib. iv., which is found in the "Collection of Tales," by Richard Edwards, printed in 1570, while the "Arabian Nights" also contain a similar story of the Caliph Haroun Alraschid. Tieck supposes that the older piece was written about 1589-90, (it is usually given to 1594), and is itself a juvenile production of Shakspeare, of which the present piece is nothing more than a later revision. Although the reasons which he gives for this opinion (founded chiefly on the similarity of its language with that of the older" King John," "Locrine," and even

1.

the older work of "the Contention betwixt the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster"), are not quite conclusive, I cannot venture to maintain the contrary, since, on the one hand, there is much in the older piece that is excellent, and such a wholesale revision is not unknown to Shakspeare; and because, on the other, Tieck's hypothesis would readily account for Shakspeare's having omitted the conclusion of the induction, the beginning of which, however, as being a popular favourite, he left standing in the subsequent recast. At any rate this older piece, combined with Holberg's farce, enables us to anticipate the termination which the poet would naturally have given to his prelude.

The drama itself, however, furnishes the principal argument in favour of the completion we propose to give to it. For if, in a piece of art, the prelude and its conclusion be only outwardly and arbitrarily connected with the intermediate drama, and not by some intrinsic, living, and organic principle, there would be a want of unity wholly fatal to its pretensions to artistic excellence. Now, a truly artistic and organic unity between the primary and secondary drama is impossible, except in the oneness of the ground-idea of both. If the latter agree with the supposed termination of the prelude, we may rightly substitute it for the missing portion, even though the poet himself may have given a different form to it in the original. Now, if we suppose a conclusion to the joke played upon the tinker similar to that which Holberg has worked out at length in his piece, and which also the older English comedy hints at, then the merry prelude and afterlude have stamped on their face the no doubt shallow truism, that the peasant-born makes a sorry lord, and a bad master. Penetrating, however, beneath the surface, we arrive at a genuine comic view of human life, as contemplated from the side of the irresistible influence which nature, and the accidental circumstances of birth, exercise upon it. For in the concave mirror of comedy there is here presented to the human mind a distorted reflection of the perverse weakness and capricious arrogance into which a man falls, whenever he quits, intentionally or not, the true position and path of life which nature has assigned to him. And the same lesson is conveyed by the inserted spectacle: we have here again the

same fundamental idea, only more clearly developed and more fully worked out. As the rude and awkward peasant, in spite of his imaginary nobility, still remains a boor, and sways the wand of authority as if it were the cudgel his hands have been used to grasp; so Katharina, the sour and ill-tempered shrew, who, despising the natural vocation of woman, has stepped beyond the line which a higher power has marked out for her, in her lust of rule and arrogance runs into the most absurd and unbecoming courses. As the tinker's dreamy lordship is soon dissolved into the unreality of a joke, and he is at last nothing more than he was at first, in like manner the crabbed shrew is forced to resign her absurd pretensions, and is completely cured by the merry device of her husband, who pretends to be possessed by a similar but greater petulance; and, thus put to shame by the distorted image of her own perversity, she is restored to the modest position which naturally becomes her sex. Thus does perversity, whose evil consequences invariably redound on itself, become its own avenger, and the dialectic of irony, which forms the proper instrument of the retribution of comedy, by displaying the weakness and sinfulness of man in its own nothingness, here appears pre-eminently in its peculiar office of physician to the soul. A feigned perversity of temper becomes the medicine of a real disease, and the drama itself, founded on profound psychological observation, is a representation of an homeopathic treatment of mind.

While, then, in "Much Ado About Nothing" we have a sharp contrariety between objective reality and the opinions and behaviour of the dramatic personages, the "Taming of the Shrew" exhibits the struggle between the natural and objective influence of the fundamental relations of life, and the subjective mind when raised above itself, either by accident or by its own guilt. In the former piece harmony is restored by a happy freak of chance, but in the latter it is brought about by the paralysis which folly and perversity engender of themselves.

Moreover, Shakspeare has here also followed his usual practice of combining several fables in the same dramatic exhibition. Besides the induction, which stands wholly apart and by itself, the poet has interwoven with the leading action the love stories of Gremio, of

Hortensio and the Widow, and of Lucentio and Bianca. The latter, especially, forms a long episode, which Shakspeare has imitated from a comedy of Ariosto, "I Suppositi," (adapted to the English stage by Gascoyne as early as 1566). He is indebted, however, for Gremio and Hortensio to his own invention. From what source he derived the materials of the principal story of Katharina and Petruchio, cannot be ascertained exactly, though in all probability from a story of Straparola's (see Simrock, ib. iii. 233). To work the same idea into the most opposite materials, so as to allow it to shew itself diversely modified in all the several parts, seems scarcely possible; and yet Shakspeare has fully accomplished this difficult task, as a few observations will suffice to prove.

A character like Katharina's can only be accounted for by the supposition of a faulty and injudicious education. The father of such a daughter must have altogether misunderstood his duties and position as a parent, and instead of ruling his family with manly decision and judgment, must have resigned himself to effeminate weakness and indulgence. And it is exactly in such colours that the good old Baptista is painted; although he loudly laments his daughter's faults, he makes no attempt to correct them. Vincentio, the father of the light-hearted Lucentio, errs on the same side of indulgence and want of firmness; for otherwise his son would never have so far forgotten his duty and the natural respect for a parent, as, in order to promote his own interest, to pass off a ridiculous pedant for his father; nor would Vincentio, if commonly prudent, have given to his son attendants who are equally regardless and forgetful of their duties as servants. Gremio, too, the hoary suitor, is justly overreached, and made a laughing-stock, because he forgets his years, and becomes a rival with spirited and mettlesome youth for the love of a beautiful maiden. Lucentio, lastly, and Hortensio, lose their wager with Petruchio, and are deservedly put to shame, because, losing sight of the dignity of the man and husband, they have played with their wives the servile part of tender and attentive lovers, and in so far have mistaken their true and natural position. Petruchio appears the only rational character of the piece; yet even he is driven, by the pervading folly of all the rest, at least to play the part of a fool, and so becomes ridiculous, even

though eventually the laugh is on his side. All the characters, except Petruchio and Katharina, are sketched with a light touch; the very composition of the piece forbids a nicer and a more accurate delineation, and yet Shakspeare has succeeded in giving to all the stamp of individuality. One trait in Katharina's conduct appears false it is not easy to see how so self-willed and stubborn a disposition could have been so easily persuaded into a marriage with Petruchio. Upon reflection, however, we shall discover in this apparent inconsistency a proof of our poet's accurate knowledge of human nature. It would unquestionably have been a light matter for him to furnish a particular motive for her consent. But the true motive evidently was the surprise and irresistible impression which an energetic mind and manly resolution made upon her. In Petruchio she meets for the first time in her life a man worthy of the name; hitherto she has been surrounded with mere women in male attire; a genuine man she cannot but admire-nay more, love. The very pride and somewhat overweening energy of her womanly nature is a sufficient reason, psychologically, for her hearty submission.

In the first comedy of intrigue that we considered-" Love's Labour's Lost"--an organic union between the objective reality and the subjective life of the individual was shewn in a general light to be an indispensable necessity of the sentient mind. In the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," and "All's Well that Ends Well," as from opposite positions within the comic view of the world, it is next shown of love, that although it is pre-eminently the foundation of human life, yet in spite of its objective influence and necessity, it does not attain to its full influence and justification except within the subjectivity of mind. "Much Ado About

Nothing," again, is founded on the contrariety between the reality. of things and the mind's view and conception of them. The "Taming of the Shrew," lastly, illustrates the weight and significance of the objective basis of human life, whenever the subjective disregards it, and more especially the enduring validity of the fundamental relation between the male and female characters. Lastly, in the three pieces which we are about to examine, the other objective bases of human life are exhibited in their ideal value within the limits of the comic view.