own. any thing higher than oneself, has assumed authority over him; forthwith a strange, pathetic, ideal light is shed over all beautiful things in the lower world which has been abandoned. We see the sunlight on our neighbour's field, while we are preoccupied about the grain that is growing in our And when we have ceased to hug our souls to any material possession, we see the sunlight wherever it falls. In the last chapter of George Eliot's great novel, Romola, who has ascended into her clear and calm solitude of self-transcending duty, bends tenderly over the children of Tito, uttering, in words made simple for their needs, the lore she has learnt from life, and seeing on their faces the light of strange, ideal beauty. In the latest plays of Shakespeare, the sympathetic reader can discern unmistakably a certain abar.donment of the common joy of the world, a certain remoteness from the usual pleasures and sadnesses of life, and at the same time, all the more, this tender bending over those who are like children, still absorbed in their individual joys and sorrows. Over the beauty of youth and the love of youth there is shed, in these plays of Shakespeare's final period, a clear yet tender luminousness, not elsewhere to be perceived in his writings. In his earlier plays, Shakespeare writes concerning young men and maidens, their loves, their mirth, their griefs, as one who is among them, who has a lively personal interest in their concerns, who can make merry with them, treat them familiarly, and, if need be, can mock them into good sense. There is nothing in these early plays wonderful, strangely beautiful, pathetic about youth and its joys and sorrows. the histories and tragedies, as was to be expected, more massive, broader, or more profound objects of interest engaged the Poet's attention. But, in these latest plays, the beauti In ful pathetic light is always present. There are the sufferers, aged, experienced, tried, — Queen Catharine, Prospero, Hermione. And over against these there are the children absorbed in their happy and exquisite egoism, Perdita and Miranda, Florizel and Ferdinand, and the boys of old Belarius. The same means to secure ideality for these figures, so young and beautiful, is in each case (instinctively, perhaps, rather than deliberately) resorted to. They are lost children, princes or princesses, removed from the Court, and its conventional surroundings, into some scene of rare natural beauty. There are the lost princes, Arviragus and Guiderius, among the mountains of Wales, drinking the free air, and offering their salutations to the risen Sun. There is Perdita, the shepherdess-princess, "queen of curds and cream," sharing with old and young her flowers, lovelier and more undying than those that Proserpina let fall from Dis's wagon. There is Miranda, (whose very name is significant of wonder,) made up of beauty, and love, and womanly pity, neither courtly nor rustic, with the breeding of an island of enchantment, where Prospero is her tutor and protector, and Caliban her servant, and the Prince of Naples her lover. In each of these plays we can see Shakespeare, as it were, tenderly bending over the joys and sorrows of youth. We recognize this rather through the total characterization, and through a feeling and a presence, than through definite incident or statement. But some of this feeling escapes in the disinterested joy and admiration of old Belarius when he gazes at the princely youths, and in Camillo's loyalty to Florizel and Perdita; while it obtains more distinct expression in such a word as that which Prospero utters, when from a distance he watches with pleasure Miranda's zeal to relieve Ferdinand from his task of log-bearing: "Poor worm, thou art infected." It is not chiefly because Prospero is a great enchanter, now about to break his magic staff, to drown his book deeper than ever plummet sounded, to dismiss his airy spirits, and to return to the practical service of his Dukedom, that we identify him in some measure with Shakespeare himself. It is rather because the temper of Prospero, the grave harmony of his character, his self-mastery, his calm validity of will, his sensitiveness to wrong, his unfaltering justice, and, with these, a certain abandonment, a remoteness from the common joys and sorrows of the world, are characteristic of Shakespeare as discovered to us in all his latest plays. Prospero is a harmonious and fully-developed will. In the earlier play of fairy enchantments, A Midsummer-Night's Dream, the "human mortals" wander to and fro in a maze of error, misled by the mischievous frolic of Puck, the jester and clown of Fairyland. But here the spirits of the elements, and Caliban the gross genius of brute-matter, — needful for the service of life, are brought under subjection to the human will of Prospero. What is more, Prospero has entered into complete possession of himself. Shakespeare has shown us his quick sense of injury, his intellectual impatience, his occasional moment of keen irritability, in order that we may be more deeply aware of his abiding strength and self-possession, and that we may perceive how these have been grafted upon a temperament not impassive or unexcitable. And Prospero has reached not only the higher levels of moral attainment; he has also reached an altitude of thought from which he can survey the whole of human life, and see how small and yet how great it is. His heart is sensitive, he is profoundly touched by the joy of children, with whom in the egoism of their love he passes for a thing of secondary interest; he is deeply moved by the perfidy of his brother. His brain is readily set a-work, and can with difficulty be checked from eager and excessive energizing; he is subject to the access of sudden and agitating thought. But Prospero masters his own sensitiveness, emotional and intellectual : — Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled: If you be pleased, retire into my cell, And there repose: a turn or two I'll walk, To still my beating mind. "Such stuff as dreams are made on." Nevertheless, in this little life, in this dream, Prospero will maintain his dreamrights and fulfil his dream-duties. In the dream, he, a Duke, will accomplish Duke's work. Having idealized every thing, Shakespeare left every thing real. Bishop Berkeley's foot was no less able to set a pebble flying than was the lumbering foot of Dr. Johnson. Nevertheless, no material substance intervened between the soul of Berkeley and the immediate presence of the play of Divine power. A thought which seems to run through the whole of The Tempest, appearing here and there like a coloured thread in some web, is the thought that the true freedom of man consists in service. Ariel, untouched by human feeling, is panting for his liberty in the last words of Prospero are promised his enfranchisement and dismissal to the elements. Ariel reverences his great master, and serves him with bright alacrity; but he is bound by none of our human ties, strong and tender; and he will rejoice when Prospero is to him as though he never were. To Caliban, a land-fish, with the duller elements of earth and water in his composition, but no portion of the higher elements, air and fire, though he receives dim intimations of a higher world, a musical humming, or a twangling, or a voice heard in sleep; to Caliban, service is slavery. He hates to bear his logs; he fears the incomprehensible power of Prospero, and obeys, and The great master has usurped the rights of the brute power Caliban. And when Stephano and Trinculo appear, ridiculously impoverished specimens of humanity, with their shallow understandings and vulgar greeds, this poor earth-monster is possessed by a sudden fanaticism for liberty! curses. 'Ban, 'Ban, Ca-Caliban Has a new master: get a new man. Freedom, hey-day! hey-day, freedom! freedom, hey-day, freedom! His new master also sings his impassioned hymn of liberty, the Marseillaise of the enchanted island: Flout 'em and scout 'em, and scout 'em and flout 'em ; The leaders of the revolution, escaped from the stench and foulness of the horse-pond, King Stephano and his prime minister Trinculo, like too many leaders of the people, bring to an end their great achievement on behalf of liberty by quarrelling over booty,—the trumpery which the providence of Prospero had placed in their way. Caliban, though scarce more truly wise or instructed than before, at least discovers his particular error of the day and hour: What a thrice-double ass Was I, to take this drunkard for a god, |