Hearing thy mildness prais'd in every town,
Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,
(Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,)

Myself am mov'd to woo thee for my wife."

Mr. Brown* has very judiciously pointed out the conduct of this scene, as an example of Shakspere's intimate knowledge of Italian manners. The conclusion of it is in reality a betrothment; of which circumstance no indication is given in the older play. The imperturbable spirit of Petrucio, and the daring mixture of reality and jest in his deportment, subdued Katharine at the first interview :—

"Father and wife," says Petrucio. The betrothment is complete; and Katharine acknowledges it when Petrucio does not come to his appointment :

:

"Now must the world point at poor Katharine,

And say-Lo! there is mad Petrucio's wife,
If it would please him come and marry her."

The "taming" has begun; her pride is touched in a right direction. But Petrucio does come. What passes in the church is matter of description, but the description is Shakspere all over. When we compare the freedom and facility which our poet has thrown into these scenes, with the drawling course of his predecessor, we are amazed that any one should have a difficulty in distinctly tracing his "fine Roman hand." Nor are the scenes of the under-plot in our opinion less certainly his. Who but Shakspere could have written these lines?

"Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move,

And with her breath she did perfume the air;
Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her."

Compare this exquisite simplicity, this tender and unpretending harmony, with the bombastic images, and the formal rhythm, of the old play; the following passage for example :

"Come fair Emelia, my lovely love,
Brighter than the burnish'd palace of the Sun,
The eyesight of the glorious firmament,
In whose bright looks sparkles the radiant fire
Wily Prometheus slily stole from Jove."

And who but Shakspere could have created Grumio out of the stupid Sander of his predecessor? That "Ancient, trusty, pleasant, servant Grumio,"

is one of those incomparable characters who drove the old clowns and fools off the stage, and trampled their wooden daggers and coxcombs for ever under foot. He is one of that numerous train that Shakspere called up, of whom Shadwell said, that "they had more wit than any of the wits and critics of his time." When Grumio comes with Petrucio to wed, he says not a word; but who has not pictured him "with a linen stock on one leg, and a kersey boot-hose on the other-a very monster in apparel, and not like a Christian foot-boy or a gentleman's lackey?" We imagine him, like Sancho or Ralpho, somewhat under-sized. His profound remark, “considering the weather, a taller man than I would take cold," is indicative equally of his stature and and his wit. His scene with Curtis, in the fourth Act, is almost as good as Launce and Touchstone.

* Shakspeare's Autobiographical Poems.

But we are digressing from Petrucio, the soul of this drama. Hazlitt's character of him is very just:-" Petrucio is a madman in his senses; a very honest fellow, who hardly speaks a word of truth, and succeeds in all his tricks and impostures. He acts his assumed character to the life, with the most fantastical extravagance, with complete presence of mind, with untired animal spirits, and without a particle of ill humour from beginning to end." The great skill which Shakspere has shown in the management of this comedy, is established in the conviction that he produces all along that Petrucio's character is assumed. Whatever he may say, whatever he may do, we are satisfied that he has a real fund of good humour at the bottom of all the outbreaks of his inordinate self-will. We know that if he succeeds in subduing the violence of his wife by a much higher extravagance of violence, he will be prepared not only to return her affection, but to evoke it, in all the strength and purity of woman's love, out of the pride and obstinacy in which it has been buried. His concluding line,

"Why, there's a wench!-Come on, and kiss me, Kate,"

is an earnest of his happiness.

Of the Induction' we scarcely know how to speak without appearing hyperbolical in our praise. It is to us one of the most precious gems in Shakspere's casket. The elegance, the truth, the high poetry, the consummate humour, of this fragment, are so remarkable, that if we apply ourselves to compare it carefully, with the earlier Induction upon which Shakspere formed it, aud with the best of the dramatic poetry of his contemporaries, we shall in some degree obtain a conception, not only of the qualities in which he equalled and excelled the highest things of other men, and in which he could be measured with them, but of those wonderful endowments in which he differed from all other men, and to which no standard of comparison can be applied. Schlegel says, "The last half of this prelude, that in which the tinker in his new state again drinks himself out of his senses, and is transformed in his sleep into his former condition, from some accident or other is lost." We doubt whether it was ever produced; and whether Shakspere did not exhibit his usual judgment in letting the curtain drop upon honest Christopher, when his wish was accomplished at the close of the comedy which he had expressed very early in its progress :

"'Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady; 'Would 't were done!"

Had Shakspere brought him again upon the scene, in all the richness of his first exhibition, perhaps the impatience of the audience would never have allowed them to sit through the lessons of "the taming-school." We have had farces enough founded upon the legend of Christopher Sly, but no one has ventured to continue him. Neither this fragment, nor that of Cambuscan bold,' could be made perfect, unless we could

"Call up him that left half-told

STATE OF THE TEXT, AND CHRONOLOGY, OF A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.

A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM was first printed in 1600. In that year there appeared two editions of the play; the one published by Thomas Fisher, a bookseller; the other by James Roberts, a printer. The differences between these two editions are very slight. Steevens, in his collection of twenty plays, has reprinted that by Roberts, giving the variations of the edition by Fisher. It is difficult to say whether both of these were printed with the consent of the author, or whether one was genuine and the other pirated. If the entries at Stationers' Hall may be taken as evidence of a proprietary right, the edition by Fisher is the genuine one, "A booke called A Mydsomer Nyghte Dreame" having been entered by him Oct. 8, 1600. One thing is perfectly clear to us-that the original of these editions, whichever it might be, was printed from a genuine copy, and carefully superintended through the press. The text appears to us as perfect as it is possible to be, considering the state of typography in that day. There is one remarkable evidence of this. The prologue to the interlude of the Clowns, in the fifth act, is purposely made inaccurate in its punctuation throughout. The speaker" does not stand upon points." It was impossible to have effected the object better than by the punctuation of Roberts' edition; and this is precisely one of those matters of nicety in which a printer would have failed, unless he had followed an extremely clear copy, or his proofs had been corrected by an author or an editor. The play was not reprinted after 1600, till it was collected into the folio of 1623; and the text in that edition differs in very few instances, and those very slight ones, from that of the preceding quartos.

Malone has assigned the composition of A Midsummer-Night's Dream to the year 1594. We are not disposed to object to this,—indeed we are inclined to believe that he has pretty exactly indicated the precise year, as far as it can be proved by one or two allusions which the play contains. But we entirely object to the reasons upon which Malone attempts to show that it was one of our author's "earliest attempts in comedy." He derives the proof of this from "the poetry of this piece, glowing with all the warmth of a youthful and lively imagination, the many scenes which it contains of almost continual rhyme, the poverty of the fable, and want of discrimination among the higher personages." Malone would place A Midsummer-Night's Dream in the same rank as The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love's Labour's Lost, and The Comedy of Errors; and he supposes all of them written within a year or two of each other. We have no objection to believe that our poet wrote A Midsummer-Night's Dream when he was thirty years of age, that is in 1594. But it so far exceeds the three other comedies in all the higher attributes of poetry, that we cannot avoid repeating here the opinion which we have so often expressed, that he had written these for the stage before his twenty-fifth year, when he was a considerable share-holder in the Blackfriars' company, some of them, perhaps, as early as 1585, at which period the vulgar tradition assigns to Shakspere-a husband, a father, and a man conscious of the possession of the very highest order of talent-the dignified office of holding horses at the theatre door. The year 1594 is, as nearly as possible, the period where we would place A Midsummer-Night's Dream, with reference to our strong belief that Shakspere's earliest plays must be assigned to the commencement of his dramatic career; and that two or three even of his great works had then been given to the world in an unformed shape, subsequently worked up to completeness and perfection.