These remarks apply to the general contexture of the comedy, and the greater part of the dialogue. But it must not be overlooked that the whole is not the work of a mere boy. It had been played before Queen Elizabeth, according to the title-page of the edition of 1598, "this last Christmas," and, as it then shortly after appeared "newly corrected and augmented," it is probable that the author had followed the fashion of his times, when (according to Mr. Collier) "it was common for dramatists to revise and improve their plays, when they were selected for exhibition at court." It does not imply any great presumption of criticism, or demand peculiar delicacy of discrimination, to separate many of these acknowledged additions from the lighter and less valuable materials in which they are inserted. Rosaline's character of Biron, in the second act, and her dialogue with him at the winding up of the drama, and Biron's speeches in the first and at the end of the fourth act, are among the passages which appropriate themselves at once to the period of the composition of the MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, or the MERCHANT OF VENICE, not less in the mood of thought than in the peculiar poetic style and melody.

The story itself is but slight, the incidents few, and the higher characters, though varied, are but sketchily drawn-at least, taking the author's own maturer style of execution in that way as the standard. There was, therefore, no very great effort of original invention in either respect; but whatever there is, either of plot or character, belongs to the author alone; for the diligence of the critics and antiquarians, (Stevens, Skottowe, Collier, etc.,) who have been most successful in tracing out the rough materials of romance, tradition, or history used by Shakespeare for the construction of his dramas, have entirely failed in discovering any thing of the kind in any older author, native or foreign, to which he could have been indebted on this occasion. It is well worthy of remark that Shakespeare, in his earlier works, bestowed more of the labour of invention upon his plot and incidents than he generally did afterwards, when he usually selected known personages, to whom and to the outline of whose story, the popular mind was already somewhat familiar,—thus, probably quite unconsciously, adopting from his own experience the usage of the great Greek dramatists. It may be that the impress of reality, which the circumstance of familiar names and events lends to the drama, more than compensated for any pleasure that mere novelty of incident could give either to the author or his audience. But, in his characters of broad humour, Shakespeare is here, as he always is, original and inventive. Although the Pedant and the Braggart are characters familiar to the old Italian stage, yet if the dramatist derived the general notion of such personages, as fitted for stage-effect, from any Italian source, (for the presumption is but remote,) still he assuredly painted them and their affectations from the life; these being characters, as Coleridge justly observes, which "a country town and a schoolboy's observation might supply."

All the personages of broader humour, in spite of their extravagances and droll absurdities, have still an air of truth, a solidity of effect, which at once indicates that, however heightened and exaggerated, still they came upon the stage from the real world, and not from the author's fancy; and this solidity and reality tend to give a more unreal and shadowy tone to the other and more courtly and poetic personages of the comedy. Such a remark can apply only to Shakespeare's very early dramatic works. The other comic creations of the second stage of the Poet's career-Launcelot Gobbo, or Falstaff-do not command the temporary illusion of the stage more than the nobler personages with whom they are contrasted. Juliet is as true and real as her Nurse.

The play in the folio of 1623 appears to have been printed from the first quarto, as it retains several errors of the press, which could not have found their way into a different manuscript. There are, however, some few variations; and the collation of the two copies, with the aid of the metre and rhyme, enable the editors to agree in a very satisfactory text.

PERIOD OF THE ACTION, MANNERS, AND COSTUME.

"There is no historical foundation for any portion of the action of this comedy. There was no Ferdinand, King of Navarre. We have no evidence of a difference between France and Navarre, as to possessions in Aquitain. We may place, therefore, the period of the action as the period of Elizabeth, for the manners are those of Shakespeare's own time. The more remarkable of the customs which are alluded to are pointed out in the notes. Cesare Vecellio, at the end of his third book, (edit. 1598,) presents us with the general costume of Navarre at this period. The women appear to have worn a sort of clog, or patten, something like the Venetian chioppine; and we are told in the text that some dressed in imitation of the French, some in the style of the Spaniards; while others blended the fashions of both those nations. The well-known costume of Henri Quatre and Philip II. may furnish authority for the dress of the King and nobles of Navarre, and of the lords attending on the Princess of France, who may herself be attired after the fashion of Marguerite de Valois, the sister of Henry III. of France, and first wife of his successor, the King of Navarre. (Vide Montfaucon, Monarchie Française.')"-KNIGHT.

SOURCE OF THE PLOT AND CHARACTERS.

I have above expressed the decided opinion that the plot of this comedy and its characters are wholly of the young Poet's own creation, with no other aid to his invention than that furnished by the general literature of his age and country, and, as to the comic personages, by such laughable individual peculiarities as fell within his acute though as yet limited observation of life and manners. In this opinion we have the concurrence of those higher critics, who, like Coleridge, argued from the internal evidence of the comedy, with others of a humble rank, who, like Skottowe, have devoted themselves to seeking out every fragment of old romance or legend which Shakespeare might possibly have read and been indebted to for even the most ordinary incidents used in his dramas. Skottowe honestly, though a little reluctantly, confesses that here his "occupation is gone;" and says that "LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST is one of the very few plays of its author, that are not ascertained to have been founded on some previously

existing work. Its incidents, however, are so simple, and in such entire conformity with the chivalric and romantic feeling of the sixteenth century, that they would readily present themselves to any mind imbued with the fashionable literature of the day." Stevens, and one or two others, are not so ready to relinquish the idea of some possible original. Mr. Collier has stated the substance of their conjectures, on the probability of which the reader will judge for himself. After stating Coleridge's conviction that "the internal evidence was indisputable that this was one of Shakespeare's earliest dramas," and that the characters were such as he might have impersonated from his own mind and schoolboy observation, Mr. Collier adds:

"The only objection to this theory is, that at the time LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST was composed, the author seems to have been acquainted in some degree with the nature of the Italian comic performances; but this acquaintance he might have acquired comparatively early in life. The character of Armado is that of a Spanish braggart, very much such a personage as was common on the Italian stage, and figures in 'Gl' Ingannati,' (which, as the Rev. Joseph Hunter was the first to point out, Shakespeare saw before he wrote his TWELFTH NIGHT,) under the name of Giglio. In the same comedy we have M. Piero Pedante, a not unusual character in pieces of that description. Holofernes is repeatedly called the 'Pedant' in the old copies of Love'S LABOUR'S LOST, while Armado is more frequently introduced as the 'Braggart' than by his name. Stevens, after stating that he had not been able to discover any novel from which this comedy had been derived, adds that 'the story has most of the features of an ancient romance;' but it is not at all impossible that Shakespeare found some corresponding incidents in an Italian play. However, after a long search, I have not met with any such production; although, if used by Shakespeare, it most likely came into England in a printed form.”

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