THE old stone conduits were in Shakspere's time very numerous in London, and allusions to them are frequent in the dramatists. We give a representation of the "Little Conduit" in Westcheap, built in 1442.

2 SCENE III." The ruddiness upon her lip is wet."

We have shown in a note to The Two Gentlemen of Verona' that the words statue and picture were often used without distinction. In the passage before us we have the mention of "oily painting;" and the Clown talks of going to see "the queen's picture." But it is clear from other passages that a statue, in the modern sense of the word, was intended. Leontes says,

"Does not the stone rebuke me, For being more stone than it ?"

It is clear, therefore, from all the context, that the statue must have been painted. Sir Henry Wotton calls this practice an English barbarism; but it is well known that the ancients had painted statues. The mention of Julio Romano is generally designated as 66 a strange absurdity." We have touched upon this in the Introductory Notice.

THE TEMPEST.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.a

ALONSO, King of Naples.

SEBASTIAN, his brother.

PROSPERO, the right Duke of Milan.

ANTONIO, his brother, the usurping Duke of Milan
FERDINAND, son to the King of Naples.

GONZALO, an honest old counsellor of Naples.

TRINCULO, a jester.

STEPHANO, a drunken butler.

Master of a ship, Boatswain, and Mariners.

SCENE,-The sea, with a ship; afterwards an

island.

a This is one of the few lists of the "Names of the Actors" which appear in the

plays first printed in the folio of 1623.

STATE OF THE TEXT, AND CHRONOLOGY, OF THE TEMPEST.

THIS comedy stands the first in the folio collection of 1623, in which edition it was originally printed. In the entry upon the Stationers' registers of November the 8th, 1623, claiming for Blount and Jaggard such plays of Shakspere as were not formerly entered to other men, it also is the first in order. The original text is printed with singular correctness; and if, with the exception of one or two obvious typographical errors, it had continued to be reprinted without any change, the world would have possessed a copy with the mint-mark of the poet upon it, instead of the clipped and scoured impression that bears the name of Steevens. Fortunately, however, in consequence of this remarkable correctness of the original, the commentators have been unable to do much in the way of what they call emendation; but what they have done is done as badly as possible.

Until within the last year or so the general opinion of the readers of Shakspere had settled into the belief that 'The Tempest' was the

last of his works. We are inclined to think that this belief was rather a matter of feeling than of judgment. Mr. Campbell has put the feeling very elegantly :-"The Tempest' has a sort of sacredness as the last work of a mighty workman. Shakspeare, as if conscious that it would be his last, and as if inspired to typify himself, has made his hero a natural, a dignified, and benevolent magician, who could conjure up spirits from the vasty deep, and command supernatural agency by the most seemingly natural and simple means. And this final play of our poet has magic indeed; for, what can be simpler in language than the courtship of Ferdinand and Miranda, and yet what can be more magical than the sympathy with which it subdues us? Here Shakspeare himself is Prospero, or rather the superior genius who commands both Prospero and Ariel. But the time was approaching when the potent sorcerer was to break his staff, and to bury it fathoms in the ocean,

'Deeper than did ever plummet sound.'

That staff has never been, and never will be, recovered." But this feeling, pretty and fanciful as it is, is certainly somewhat deceptive. It is not borne out by the internal evidence of the play itself. Shakspere never could have contemplated, in health and intellectual vigour, any abandonment of that occupation which constituted his happiness and glory. We have no doubt that he wrote on till the hour of his last illness. His later plays are unquestionably those in which the mighty intellect is more tasked than the unbounded fancy. His later plays, as we believe, present the philosophical and historical aspect of human affairs rather than the passionate and the imaginative. The Roman historical plays are, as it appears to us, at the end of his career, as the English historical plays are at the beginning. Nothing can be more different than the principle of art upon which the Henry VI.' and the Antony and Cleopatra' are constructed. The Roman plays denote, we think, the growth of an intellect during five-and-twenty years. The Tempest' does not present the characteristics of the latest plays. It has the playfulness and beauty of the comedies, mingled with the higher notes of passionate and solemn thought which distinguish the great tragedies. It is essentially, too, written wholly with reference to the stage, at a period when an Ariel could be presented to an imaginative audience without the prosaic encumbrance of wings. The later plays, such as 'Troilus and Cressida,' and the three Roman subjects, are certainly written without any very strong regard to dramatic effect. They are noble acting plays, especially Julius Cæsar' and