the most beautiful of them occurs in this play, with a preface of his own to it.

'Duke. O fellow, come, the song we had last night. Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain;

The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,

And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,

Do use to chaunt it: it is silly sooth,

And dallies with the innocence of love,
Like the old age.

SONG.

Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath;

I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O prepare it;

My part of death no one so true
Did share it.

Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there be strewn;

Not a friend, not a friend greet

My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown:
A thousand thousand sighs to save,

Lay me, O! where

Sad true-love never find my grave,
To weep there.'

Who after this will say that Shakespear's genius was only fitted for comedy? Yet after reading other parts of this play, and particularly the garden-scene where Malvolio picks up the letter, if we were to say that his genius for comedy was less than his genius for tragedy, it would perhaps only prove that our own taste in such matters is more saturnine than mercurial.

:

'Enter MARIA.

Sir Toby. Here comes the little villain :-How now, my nettle of India? Maria. Get ye all three into the box-tree: Malvolio's coming down this walk he has been yonder i' the sun, practising behaviour to his own shadow this half hour: observe him, for the love of mockery; for I know this letter will make a contemplative idiot of him. Close, in the name of jesting! Lie thou there; for here come's the trout that must be caught with tickling.

[They hide themselves. Maria throws down a letter, and Exit.

Enter MALVOLIO.

Malvolio. "Tis but fortune; all is fortune. Maria once told me, she did affect me; and I have heard herself come thus near, that, should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion. Besides, she uses me with a more exalted respect than any one else that follows her. What should I think on't? Sir Toby. Here's an over-weening rogue!

Fabian. O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him; how he jets under his advanced plumes!

Sir Andrew. 'Slight, I could so beat the rogue :

Sir Toby. Peace, I say.

Malvolio. To be count Malvolio ;

Sir Toby. Ah, rogue !

Sir Andrew. Pistol him, pistol him.

Sir Toby. Peace, peace!

Malvolio. There is example for 't; the lady of the Strachy married the yeoman of the wardrobe.

Sir Andrew. Fie on him, Jezebel!

Fabian. O, peace! now he's deeply in; look, how imaginationiblows him. Mal-volio. Having been three months married to her, sitting in my chair of state,

Sir Toby. O for a stone bow, to hit him in the eye!

Malvolio. Calling my officers about me, in my branch'd velvet gown; having come from a day-bed, where I have left Olivia sleeping.

Sir Toby. Fire and brimstone !

Fabian. O peace, peace!

Malvolio. And then to have the humour of state: and after a demure travel of regard,- -telling them, I know my place, as I would they should do theirs, to ask for my kinsman Toby.—

Sir Toby. Bolts and shackles !

Fabian. O, peace, peace, peace! now, now.

Malvolio. Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make out for him; I frown the while; and, perchance, wind up my watch, or play with some rich jewel. Toby approaches; curtsies there to me.

Sir Toby. Shall this fellow live?

Fabian. Though our silence be drawn from us with cares, yet peace. Malvolio. I extend my hand to him thus, quenching my familiar smile with an austere regard to controul.

Sir Toby. And does not Toby take you a blow o' the lips then?

Malvolio. Saying-Cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast me on your niece, give me this prerogative of speech ;

Sir Toby. What, what?

Malvolio. You must amend your drunkenness.

Fabian. Nay, patience, or we break the sinews of our plot.

Malvolio. Besides, you waste the treasure of your time with a foolish

knight

Sir Andrew. That's me, I warrant you.

Malvolio. One Sir Andrew

Sir Andrew. I knew, 'twas I; for many do call me fool.

Malvolio. What employment have we here?

[Taking up the letter.'

The letter and his comments on it are equally good. If poor Malvolio's treatment afterwards is a little hard, poetical justice is done in the uneasiness which Olivia suffers on account of her mistaken attachment to Cesario, as her insensibility to the violence of the Duke's passion is atoned for by the discovery of Viola's concealed love of him.

THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

THIS is little more than the first outlines of a comedy loosely sketched in. It is the story of a novel dramatised with very little labour or pretension; yet there are passages of high poetical spirit, and of inimitable quaintness of humour, which are undoubtedly Shakespear's, and there is throughout the conduct of the fable a careless grace and felicity which marks it for his. One of the editors (we believe Mr. Pope) remarks in a marginal note to the Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

'It is observable (I know not for what cause) that the style of this comedy is less figurative, and more natural and unaffected than the greater part of this author's, though supposed to be one of the first he wrote.

Yet so little does the editor appear to have made up his mind upon this subject, that we find the following note to the very next (the second) scene.

"This whole scene, like many others in these plays (some of which I believe were written by Shakespear, and others interpolated by the players) is composed of the lowest and most trifling conceits, to be accounted for only by the gross taste of the age he lived in: Populo ut placerent. I wish I had authority to leave them out, but I have done all I could, set a mark of reprobation upon them, throughout this edition.'

It is strange that our fastidious critic should fall so soon from praising to reprobating. The style of the familiar parts of this comedy is indeed made up of conceits-low they may be for what we know, but then they are not poor, but rich ones. The scene of Launce with his dog (not that in the second, but that in the fourth act) is a perfect treat in the way of farcical drollery and invention; nor do we think Speed's manner of proving his master to be in love deficient in wit or sense, though the style may be criticised as not simple enough for the modern taste.

'Valentine. Why, how know you that I am in love?

Speed. Marry, by these special marks: first, you have learned, like Sir Protheus, to wreathe your arms like a malcontent, to relish a love-song

like a robin-red-breast, to walk alone like one that had the pestilence, to sigh like a school-boy that had lost his ABC, to weep like a young wench that had buried her grandam, to fast like one that takes diet, to watch like one that fears robbing, to speak puling like a beggar at Hallowmas. You were wont, when you laughed, to crow like a cock; when you walked, to walk like one of the lions; when you fasted, it was presently after dinner; when you looked sadly, it was for want of money; and now you are metamorphosed with a mistress, that when I look on you, I can hardly think you my master.'

The tender scenes in this play, though not so highly wrought as in some others, have often much sweetness of sentiment and expression. There is something pretty and playful in the conversation of Julia with her maid, when she shews such a disposition to coquetry about receiving the letter from Protheus; and her behaviour afterwards and her disappointment, when she finds him faithless to his vows, remind us at a distance of Imogen's tender constancy. Her answer to Lucetta, who advises her against following her lover in disguise, is a beautiful piece of poetry.

'Lucetta. I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire, But qualify the fire's extremest rage,

Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.

Julia. The more thou damm'st it up, the more it burns;

The current that with gentle murmur glides,

Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;

But when his fair course is not hindered,

He makes sweet music with th' enamell'd stones,

Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge

He overtaketh in his pilgrimage:

And so by many winding nooks he strays,
With willing sport, to the wild ocean.

Then let me go, and hinder not my course;

I'll be as patient as a gentle stream,

And make a pastime of each weary step,
Till the last step have brought me to my love;

And there I'll rest, as after much turmoil,

A blessed soul doth in Elysium.'

If Shakespear indeed had written only this and other passages in the Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA, he would almost have deserved Milton's praise of him

'And sweetest Shakespear, Fancy's child,
Warbles his native wood-notes wild.'

But as it is, he deserves rather more praise than this.

1 The river wanders at its own sweet will.-WORDSWORTH.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

THIS is a play that in spite of the change of manners and prejudices still holds undisputed possession of the stage. Shakespear's malignant has outlived Mr. Cumberland's benevolent Jew. In proportion as Shylock has ceased to be a popular bugbear, 'baited with the rabble's curse,' he becomes a half-favourite with the philosophical part of the audience, who are disposed to think that Jewish revenge is at least as good as Christian injuries. Shylock is a good hater; a man no less sinned against than sinning.' If he carries his revenge too far, yet he has strong grounds for the lodged hate he bears Anthonio,' which he explains with equal force of eloquence and reason. He seems the depositary of the vengeance of his race; and though the long habit of brooding over daily insults and injuries has crusted over his temper with inveterate misanthropy, and hardened him against the contempt of mankind, this adds but little to the triumphant pretensions of his enemies. There is a strong, quick, and deep sense of justice mixed up with the gall and bitterness of his resentment. The constant apprehension of being burnt alive, plundered, banished, reviled, and trampled on, might be supposed to sour the most forbearing nature, and to take something from that milk of human kindness,' with which his persecutors contemplated his indignities. The desire of revenge is almost inseparable from the sense of wrong; and we can hardly help sympathising with the proud spirit, hid beneath his 'Jewish gaberdine,' stung to madness by repeated undeserved provocations, and labouring to throw off the load of obloquy and oppression heaped upon him and all his tribe by one desperate act of 'lawful' revenge, till the ferociousness of the means by which he is to execute his purpose, and the pertinacity with which he adheres to it, turn us against him; but even at last, when disappointed of the sanguinary revenge with which he had glutted his hopes, and exposed to beggary and contempt by the letter of the law on which he had insisted with so little remorse, we pity him, and think him hardly dealt with by his judges. In all his answers and retorts upon his adversaries, he has the best not only of the argument but of the question, reasoning on their own principles and practice. They are so far from allowing of any measure of equal dealing, of common justice or humanity between themselves and the Jew, that even when they come to ask a favour of him, and Shylock reminds them that on such a day they spit upon him, another spurned him, another called him dog, and for these curtesies request he'll lend them so much monies '—