of York and Warwick, of Humphrey of Gloster and Cardinal Beaufort, are alike faithful to history and to nature, while the death of the ambitious prelate is unparalleled for its awful sublimity, its terrific delineation of a tortured conscience; a scene, of which the impressions are so overpowering, that, to adopt the language of Dr. Johnson," the superficial reader cannot miss them, the profound can image nothing beyond them.” * As these two parts, therefore, whether we consider the original text, or the numerous alterations and additions of Shakspeare, hold a rank greatly superior to the elder play of "Henry the sixth in swaddling bands crown'd king," a production which, at the same time, offers no trace of any finishing strokes from the master-bard, it would be but doing justice to the original design of Shakspeare to insert for the future in his works only the two pieces which he remodelled, designating them as they are found in this arrangement, and which seems, indeed, merely a restoration of their first titles. This may the more readily be done, as there appears no necessary connection between the elder drama, and those of Shakspeare on the same reign; whereas between the two plays of our author, and between them and his Richard the Third, not only an intimate union, but a regular series of unbroken action subsists. If, however, it should be thought convenient to have the old play of Henry the Sixth within the reach of reference, let it be placed in an Appendix to the poet's works, dislodging for that purpose the disgusting Tragedy of Titus Andronicus, which has hitherto, to the disgrace of our national literature, and of our noblest writer, accompanied every edition aspiring to be complete, from the folio of 1623 to the re-impression of 1813! VOL. II. * Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xiii. p. 307. note. Q Q 5. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM: 1593. In endeavouring to ascertain the order in which Shakspeare's plays were written, it would seem a duty, on the part of the chronologist, where no passage positively indicates the contrary, not to attribute to the poet the composition of several pieces during the course of the same year; for, admitting the fertility of our author to have been, what it unquestionably was, very great, still, without some certain date annihilating all room for conjecture, it would be a gross violation of probability to ascribe even to him the production of four or even three of his capital productions, and such productions too, in the space of but twelve months. This, however, has been done, in their respective arrangements, twice by Mr. Malone, and six times by Mr. Chalmers, the latter gentleman having allotted to our dramatist not less than seventeen plays in the course of only five years! Eurely such an attribution is, of itself, sufficient to stagger the most willing credulity, particularly when we find that, during the course of this period, occupying the years 1595, 1596, 1597, 1598, and 19, four such plays as the following are appropriated to one year, that of 1597,-Henry IV. the Second Part, Henry V., The Merchant of Venice, and Hamlet. Now as these pieces, so far from resembling the light and rapid sketches of Lopez de la Vega or of Heywood, are among the most elaborate of our author's productions, and as no data with any pretensions to certainty can be adduced for the assignment in question, we must be allowed, notwithstanding the ingenuity and indefatigable research of Mr. Chalmers, to doubt the propriety of his chronological system. * Acting, therefore, on this idea, that where no decisive evidence to the contrary is apparent, not more than two plays should be See his Table, in Supplemental Apology, pp. 466, 467, where he tells us that in making it, he has been governed " rather by the influence of moral certainty, than directed by any supposed necessity of fixing some of the dramas to each year;" but where is the evidence that shall reconcile us to the necessity of passing over the years 1610, 1611, and 1612, without the production of a single play, and then ascribing to the year 1613, three such compositions, as The Tempest, The Twelfth-Night, and Henry VIII.? assigned to our bard in the compass of one year, and being firmly persuaded, from the argument which has been brought forward, that the two parts of Henry the Sixth were the product of the year 1592, while, at the same time, we agree with the majority of the commentators in considering the Midsummer-Night's Dream as an early composition, it has been thought most consonant to probability to give to the latter, in lieu of the epoch of 1592, or 1595, or 1598, its present intermediate station; and this has been done, even though the plays on Henry the Sixth, being built on the basis of other writers, cannot be supposed to have occupied so much of the poet's time as more original efforts. The Midsummer-Night's Dream, then, is the first play which exhibits the imagination of Shakspeare in all its fervid and creative power; for though, as mentioned in Meres's catalogue, as having numerous scenes of continued rhyme, as being barren in fable, and defective in strength of character, it may be pronounced the offspring of youth and inexperience, it will ever in point of fancy be considered as equal to any subsequent drama of the poet. There is, however, a light in which the best plays of Shakspeare should be viewed, which will, in fact, convert the supposed defects of this exquisite sally of sportive invention into positive excellence. A unity of feeling most remarkably pervades and regulates their entire structure, and the Midsummer-Night's Dream, a title in itself declaratory of the poet's object and aim, partakes of this bond, or principle of coalescence, in a very peculiar degree. It is, indeed, a fabric of the most buoyant and aërial texture, floating as it were between earth and heaven, and tinted with all the magic colouring of the rainbow, "The earth hath bubbles as the water has, And this is of them." In a piece thus constituted, where the imagery of the most wild and fantastic dream is actually embodied before our eyes, where the principal agency is carried on by beings lighter than the gossamer, and smaller than the cowslip's bell, whose elements are the moon beams and the odoriferous atmosphere of flowers, and whose sport it is "To dance in ringlets to the whistling wind," it was necessary, in order to give a filmy and consistent legerity to every part of the play, that the human agents should partake of the same evanescent and visionary character; accordingly both the higher and lower personages of this drama are the subjects of illusion and enchantment, and love and amusement their sole occupation; the transient perplexities of thwarted passion, and the grotesque adventures of humorous folly, touched as they are with the tenderest or most frolic pencil, blending admirably with the wild, sportive, and romantic tone of the scenes where "Trip the light fairies and the dapper elves,” and forming together a whole so variously yet so happily interwoven, so racy and effervescent in its composition, of such exquisite levity and transparency, and glowing with such luxurious and phosphorescent splendour, as to be perfectly without a rival in dramatic litera ture. 66 Nor is this piece, though, from the nature of its fable, unproductive of any strong character, without many pleasing discriminations of passion and feeling. Mr. Malone asks if “a single passion be agitated by the faint and childish solicitudes of Hermia and Demetrius, of Helena and Lysander, those shadows of each other?" Now, whatever may be thought of Demetrius and Lysander, the characters of Hermia and Helena are beautifully drawn, and finely contrasted, and in much of the dialogue which occurs between them, the chords both of love and pity are touched with the poet's wonted skill. In their interview in the wood, the contrariety of their dispositions is completely developed; Hermia is represented as • Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 251. "keen and shrewd: a vixen, when she went to school, And, though but little, fierce," eyes and in her difference with her friend, threatens to scratch her out with her nails, while Helena, meek, humble, and retired, sues for protection, and endeavours in the most gentle manner to deprecate her wrath: "I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen, Let her not hurt me: I was never curst; I have no gift at all in shrewishness; I am a right maid for my cowardice; Let her not strike me: Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me. I evermore did love you, Hermia, Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you; And in an earlier part of this scene, where Helena first suspects that her friend had conspired with Demetrius and Lysander to mock and deride her, nothing can more exquisitely paint her affectionate temper, and the heartfelt pangs of severing friendship, than the following lines, most touching in their appeal, an echo from the very bosom of nature itself: "Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid! Is all the counsel that we two have shar'd, All school-day's friendship, childhood innocence? Have with our neelds created both one flower, |