or the True, like Molière; or still better-and this is the highest summit to which genius can soar to attain at once the Great and the True, the Great in the True, the True in the Great, like Shakespeare. It was given to Shakespeareand it is that which causes the sovereignty of his genius-to reconcile, to unite, to amalgamate unceasingly in his productions these two qualities,-Truth and Greatness; qualities which are almost opposed, or, at the least, so distinct, that the defect of each one constitutes the reverse of the other. The rock-ahead of Truth, is the Little; the rock-ahead of Greatness, is the False. In all the works of Shakespeare, there is Greatness which is True, and Truth which is Great."

This is expressed with the antithetical play, akin to wit, which is a feature in French definition; and it is also characteristically French in its creed-that Truth in Art is perilously near to Littleness. This was the belief which so long blinded Frenchmen to Shakespeare's supremacy; but they are gaining clearer insight into the fallacy of their former idea, that naturalness compromises sublimity, and that unadorned Truth is poor, bare, and small.

The observations of another French writer, Villemain, convey amusingly this sense of Shakespeare's dangerous approximation to the ungentilities of truth. Speaking of the American people, he says:-"The popular good sense of these men, so industrious and so occupied, seizes with ardour the profound thoughts, the sagacious maxims with which Shakespeare is filled; his gigantic images please minds accustomed to the most magnificent spectacles of nature, and the immensity of the forests and rivers of the New World. His rudeness and inequality, his strange familiarities, offend not a society which is formed of so many different elements, which knows neither an aristocracy nor a court, and which has rather the strength and arms of civilisation than its elegance and politeness." The same idea is broached with characteristic British bluntness, as contrasted with French conventional refinement, in Morgann's admirable "Essay on the Character of Falstaff;" where he says:-"When the hand of time shall have brushed off his present editors and commentators, and when the very name of Voltaire, and even the memory of the

language in which he has written, shall be no more, the Apalachian mountains, the banks of the Ohio, and the plains of Sciota, shall resound with the accents of this barbarian.”

*

It is because Voltaire's successors have come to reverse his verdict upon our poet's genius, and because, it is interesting to note the improved appreciation of Shakespeare in France, that we have taken pleasure in quoting chiefly French opinions upon his transcendent merit. Another reason has influenced us in rather citing from French critics than from those who have hitherto been esteemed his best praisers-the Germans. The chief among these latter-Augustus Schlegel -has been so frequently quoted, that his animadversions are known to every one; but while admitting the validity and beauty of most of his Shakespearian dicta, we venture to think some of them may have been overrated. In the first place, certain of them, accredited as original, really emanated from our own great poetical critic as well as great poet, Coleridge; and secondly, Schlegel's own critical judgment was too much biassed by manifest prejudice to be worthy of the implicit faith hitherto placed in his awards. Witness, for instance, the sentence he passes on three of the doubtful plays, ("Thomas Lord Cromwell," "Sir John Oldcastle,” and “A Yorkshire Tragedy;") declaring them to be "not only unquestionably Shakespeare's," but affirming that, in his opinion, "they deserve to be classed among his best and maturest works." (!) But the strongest cause for questioning Schlegel's claim to be considered an infallible critic, is his glaring injustice to that fine genius, Molière,-who was only second to Shakespeare himself as a comic dramatist,-when he stigmatises him as a court "buffoon," whose aim in writing was to make Louis XIV. laugh; when he disputes his claim to originality on the score of his borrowing his plots from foreign sources, although finding no diminution of the same claim in other authors for the same act; and when he can find no higher praise for such noble dramas as the immortal" École des Femmes," "Tartuffe," "Misanthrope," and "Femmes Savantes," than, that they are "pieces which are finished with great diligence." (!) When we see a critic thus grossly

* Vide "Literary Remains," vol. ii., pp. 77, 202. See also "Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton," p. 103.

unjust to one author, we feel almost inclined to resentassuredly to receive with less respect-his encomiums on another; and it is on this account that Schlegel's laudation of Shakespeare comes with abated force, when we behold his incapability of attributing due merit to the thrice-admirable Molière.

Professor Wilson, besides some acutely discriminative observations upon certain of Shakespeare's chief plays and characters, made a profound discovery relative to the dramatist's principle in the observance of the unities. Under his literary title of Christopher North, the professor broached this discovery in Blackwood's Magazine for November 1849; and during the same month, the Reverend N. J. Halpin put forth a small pamphlet laying claim to having already made the same discovery. It seems clear, from the evidence adduced, that both gentlemen are equally entitled to the honour of having discerned this invaluable clue to Shakespeare's system of the unities-more especially that of Time. It leads to the revelation of the real and beautifully artistic intention of many of the poet's apparent discrepancies; which, so far from being erroneously, or even inadvertently made, are purposely introduced with a view to harmony of plan, reconcilement of obstacles, and ascertainment of progress. Professor Wilson takes the tragedies of "Macbeth" and "Othello" in illustration of his theory; while Mr Halpin adopts the "Merchant of Venice" by which to demonstrate his view of the same system. The former showed how "two clocks," as it were, of dramatic Time, were going on simultaneously throughout Shakespeare's dramas; one pointing to." long time," the other to "short time," and that this concurrent indication of the "two clocks" produced the desired impression of the drama's duration upon the mind of the spectator. The latter (Mr Halpin) says, "He contrived what one may term a chronometer consisting of a double series of time or dates; the one illusory, suggestive, and natural; the other artistical, visible, and dramatic; the first of which may be called the PROTRACTIVE series, the latter, the ACCELERATING; and out of the impressions thus unequally created, he constructed a dramatic system unknown to the world before his time, and unpractised ever since." The way in which each theorist has

made out his case, and arrived at a similar conclusion, by illustration adduced from the above-mentioned plays, is extremely interesting, and establishes their point with the most satisfactory and triumphant effect. In "Othello," Professor Wilson shows how the "long time" necessary to produce upon the spectator's mind the effect of a sufficing period of wedded union between Othello and Desdemona to enhance the impression of tragic naturalness in their fate, concurrent with the actual "short time" stated in the one day and night that are occupied with the arrival in Cyprus, the celebration of the Moor's nuptials, the disgrace of Cassio, the following morning's suit to be restored to favour, Iago's immediate machinations, and the next night's catastrophe, are blended into one magic Time-unity by the subtle art of Shakespeare. In the "Merchant of Venice," Mr Halpin makes manifest how the "long time" required by the conditions of the bond between Shylock and Antonio,-three months,-is produced upon the reader, while the absolute "short time" needful for passing to and from Belmont, with Portia's appearance at the Venice tribunal instantly upon her marriage with Bassanio, are in the same way made to tally in skilful contrivance of impression.

It is pleasant to see how critics have gradually grown to touch upon points which bear the superficial appearance of error in Shakespeare with respect;-prepared rather to think their own discernment may be at fault than prematurely to impeach his merit, and to scan patiently, instead of reprobating hastily. His infallibility has-of its own power-exacted this altered treatment on the part of his annotators. As an instance in point, observe the mode in which the first commentators dealt with what they called his faults and blemishes summarily judging, trenchantly blaming. Then Mr Campbell-with that tone of petulance which occasionally mars his otherwise delightful commentary on Shakespeare's genius-adverted to the poet's deviation from the old classic rules of Time-unity, with a sarcasm instead of an investigation into its true meaning and merit. While lastly, the Boston editor, Mr Hudson, and the enthusiastic Armitage Brown, (in his "Shakespeare's Autobiographical Poems,") have both perceived the apparent discrepancies in Time, during the

course of "Othello;" yet while discerning them, they pronounce no rash censure upon points which the disquisitions of Mr Halpin and Mr Wilson have since proved to be systematic provisions in Shakespeare's Dramatic Art of Timeunity.

Some of the best things said by Dr Johnson in his, in many respects, fine Preface, are upon the "unities." He seems to have felt the superiority of Shakespeare's art in their conduct, although unable to define the system upon which the poet treated them. He claims the true privilege of the dramatist's power over the spectator's imagination, when he says, "There is no reason why an hour should not be a century in that calenture of the brains that can make the stage a field."

It is curious that those who lay so much stress on unity of place, as enhancing probability, should not perceive the gross improbabilities it necessarily involves. The Classical French school of Dramatic Art, while inviolably preserving certain rules of the stage, perpetually violates our impressions of natural event. In being called upon to admire the strictness with which the unities are observed, calls are made upon our belief and allowance that outrage every impression of verisimilitude. The magic power of the true dramatist transports us to what scene he chooses, and we sit there to witness what he presents to our imagination. While his spell lasts, we submit ourselves to its influence, and lose sight of all but that which he immediately places before our view. There is no difficulty, no strain upon our sense of fitness, no wrenching of our credulity, to believe that we see what he wills us to see, so long as his art of representation is sufficiently potent to conjure up the scene he describes visibly to our imagination. It is quite as great a demand upon our faith to suppose that we behold people coming out of their houses to hold converse on their private affairs in a public street, or place, or square; that they issue forth from their separate apartments into one especial antechamber of a palace or mansion—a sort of general talking-place, a social Exchange-where they may hold conferences, repose confidences, or indulge soliloquies; that they should go out and come in just when convenient to the story; that they should meet at exact moments, or remain