'flirt-gills': Rom. & Jul., II. iv. 162 (see fig). Cp. "Fania, a mincing, coie, nice, puling, squeamish woman, an idle huswife, a flurt, a gigxi. Faniare, to mince it, to pule, to be squeamish, to play the idle huswife. Pedrolina, a strumpet, a harlot, a trull, a minion, a flurt, a minx."-1598; Florio.

"His purpose

a fool's paradise': Rom. & Jul., II. iv. 175. was to haue vs brought vnderhand into a fooles paradise [duci falso gaudia], to the end that . . we should suddainly be taken napping, in such sort, as wee might not haue time to bethinke vs how to preuent the marriage. A suttle foxe, I warrant him."-R. Bernard's Terence in English, p. 15, ed. 1607 (1st ed. 1598).

Nos opinantes ducimur falso gaudio. the moone is made of a greene cheese. into a fooles paradise.”—Ib. p. 17.

"He makes vs beleeue Hee brings vs silly ones,

"O Syrus, for Gods sake bring me not into a fooles paradise [ne me in lætitiam frustrà coniicias].”—Ib. p. 212.

'foyne': Lear, IV. vi. 251; 2 Hen. IV., II. i. 17. "Stoccata, a foyne, a thrust, a stoccado giuen in fence. Stoccheggiare, to strike with a short sword, a tuck, or a truncheon, to foyne or thrust at, to giue a stoccado. Stocco, a truncheon, a tuck, a short sword, an arming sword."-1598; Florio.

'gall'd jade wince': Hamlet, III. ii. 253.

"A galled horse, the sooth if ye list se,

who toucheth him, boweth his back for dred;
And who is knowe vntrue in his countrye,
shrinketh his hornes whan men speke of falsheed."

ab. 1430; Lydgate's Fall of Princes; black letter
(no date, but about 1550), leaf xxxvii. back.

"It is a lie (quoth he), and thou a lyer,

Will ye (quoth she) dryve me to touch thee nyer?
I drub the gald hors backe till he winche, & yit
He would make it seeme, that I touch him no whit."
1546; Heywood's Dialogue of Proverbs.
"Galled horses winch, and I must gall him still."

Braithwaite's Natures Embassy (1621), p. 57. 'harlotry' (harlot): Oth., IV. iv. 239. "Is my sonne any thing grieued at this marriage, in respect of the loue and familiaritie betwixt him and this strange harlotrie."-R. Bernard's Terence in English, p. 45, ed. 1607 (1st ed. 'kam': clean kam.

1598).

Coriol., III. i. 304. "Brider son cheval par la queuë. To goe the wrong way to worke; or, to do a thing cleane kamme."-1611; Cotgrave.

'swaggerer': 2 Hen. IV., II. iv. 81, 83, 91, 104, 105, 117. "Charette. f. A Chariot; a Wagon. . . . Mangeur de charrettes ferrées. A terrible cutter, swaggerer, bugbeare, swash-buckler; one that will kill all he sees, and eat all he kils."--Cotgrave.

(Promist for, and taken as read at, the 24th Meeting of the Society, Friday, April 28, 1876.3)

ALTHOUGH in this paper I intend to treat of the narrative or epic elements in Shakspere's dramas, I am aware that my German title does not describe my theme with sufficient accuracy. In any case, the want of a better-chosen name, of a more exact description, lays me open at once to a misconception. For, to endeavour to point out narrative or epic elements in the works of the poet, who is considered by all the world in the highest sense dramatic, looks at first like a rash attempt to deny the genuine dramatic character of these works, and to accuse the author himself of unduly mixing two sorts of poetry-the dramatic and the epic. This however is far from being my intention. On the contrary, I hope to prove that the apparent residuum of epic poetry which we find in Shakspere's dramas, is a necessary ingredient of his dramatic poetry.

I consider as epic elements in Shakspere's dramas, all those passages in which the poet, through the mouth of a character, merely narrates or describes what might have been scenically represented to the audience. The causes which lead the poet thus to describe instead of dramatize, are as various as his procedure, and were no less determined by the nature of the stage properties in his days, and the 1 Describing incidents, &c.

2 This Paper is englisht from Prof. Delius's German one, on 'The Epic Elements in Shakspere's Dramas,' read at the annual meeting of the Deutsche Shakspere Gesellschaft, on the 8th of May 1876. For the englishing, the Society is indebted to Miss Eva Gordon, of Pixholme, near Dorking.-F.

necessities of the theatre, than by the artistic plan and performance from the poet's point of view. Generally however, and without regard to the modifications in particulars hereafter to be specified, we may make the following classes of Shaksperian epics in our poet's dramas.

First: previous occurrences are narrated by the characters of the play, so far as an account seemed to the poet necessary to a comprehension of the dramatic action then beginning. And each is narrated, because it took place too long before the commencement of the drama to be conveniently incorporated dramatically with it. Or else the previous occurrences are narrated because their actions and characters are only partially and loosely connected with the actions and characters of the real play. In either case our poet makes a more sparing use of this means of narration than many of his dramatic predecessors and contemporaries; while, on the other hand, the greater freedom of movement enjoyed on the English stage over many others, never compelled him, at the cost of the dramatic unity of his play, to drag epic by-play into his dramas.

II. Another epic element which we encounter in Shakspere's dramas may be described as the episodic, so far that it is not (like the narration of previous history) incorporated in the scenes, but is found distributed here and there through the whole play. The employment of this episodic element is particularly to be referred to two artistic motives: first, to a practical consideration of the scanty resources of the English theatre in Shakspere's time, which offered little to the eyes of the spectators beyond the sight of the actors on the stage, bare of all scenery and other apparatus. (All the pomp and decoration produced by our scene-painters and machinists, in such various forms, as a necessary indispensable part,—we may say as a comprehensible representation of the dramatic action,—was wanting, and had to be supplied by the imagination of the English public, from the poem which minutely described all that it was necessary to know.)

Secondly, to the poet's dramatic instinct, which led him to clear out of the way of his climax,-or the progress of his play,-by narration, everything which hinderd or weakend the effect he wanted to produce.

In the Shaksperian plays, then, this descriptive element, which can only be called epic in a wider sense, is frequently connected with the real epic element of a narration, which saves to the poet a whole scene, necessary, but a hindrance, to the swift advance of the drama, and gives to the audience a welcome view over most of the events past and to come.

I will now attempt, according to the theory of the Shaksperian dramaturgy which I have here laid down, to collect examples of this practice from the works of our poet. Naturally, owing to my limited space, I can only consider a selection of these, from a selection of the principal dramas, as well as a selection of examples from these dramas. And we must observe this moderation in every individual play under our consideration, in order to pick out entire characteristic classes of epic elements.

We will begin with a few dramas from Shakspere's middle period, which embraces the highest point of his art: and first we will take the Merchant of Venice. The poet narrates the previous history of this drama shortly but sufficiently in the two first scenes: Bassanio's previous courtship of the rich heiress of Belmont, and the strange conditions to which Portia's wooers were subjected by her father's will. By the humorous satirical speeches in which Portia describes her wooers to her confidant Nerissa, the poet spares himself the necessity for a whole series of scenes in which they would have chosen the terrible caskets amiss. It suffices to present the Prince of Morocco and the Prince of Arragon, one after another, in the fatal situation of a wrong choice and unfortunate suit. In the second act the poet narrates two events instead of dramatizing them: Shylock's despair and rage when he learns at once the theft of his daughter and his ducats, and traverses Venice pursued by the noisy mirth of all the boys in the street. In sharp contrast to this event-which would perhaps be too scurrilous, if dramatized, for a fine taste, and might weaken Shylock's later appearance-we have in the same scene a simple touching account, by an eye witness, of the parting between Bassanio and Antonio, which, scenically represented, would have required further development, and would have hindered the swift progress of the play.

In the Midsummer's Night's Dream1, the narration of previous action relates chiefly to the quarrel between Oberon and Titania, and its consequences, so disastrous for nature and mankind. Shakspere places the history of this disagreement in the mouths of the Queen of the Fairies and her husband themselves, as just before the roguish Puck has boasted of his own mischievous tricks, to explain his character, and to prepare the public for the tricks in which he indulges in the course of the play.

A third descriptive or epic element in the same second act of our play is Oberon's account of the flower, the juice of which, when sprinkled on the eyes of the lovers, was to produce such mistakes and trouble. Whatever meaning we may attribute to this much-commentated-on passage, this much is certain: a scenical representation of the event would not have been suitable to the limited stage capabilities of the time; but in consideration of its consequences so important to the development of the action, it was necessary to represent this event to the spiritual eyes of the spectator by a close and picturesque description. And in this our poet has been entirely successful. The audience, while they heard in the theatre Oberon's words, saw Oberon himself sitting in the scene which he described. They saw, with Oberon's eyes, Cupid's all-powerful arrow glance off from the enthroned vestal of the west, and wound the little flower which before was white, now purpled by love's wound. They saw how, in contrast to the invulnerable chastity of that vestal, a siren charmed the rude sea with her deceitful song, and enticed with it the stars from their spheres.

In the Taming of the Shrew we have two forcible descriptions, so true to life, so vivid, that it seems as if we saw them acted before us: Petruchio's studied carelessness of attire as he came to his wedding, and his exceeding unceremoniousness at the ceremony. But the horse afflicted with every known disease is, in Shakspere's detailed description, perhaps better and more æsthetic than if he had really been brought upon the stage, even if the boards of those days would

'Prof. Delius dates this play 1595, and puts it between the Merchant, 1595, and King John, 1596. I date it 1590-1, and hold it a First-Period play; the Merchant, 1596, a Second-Period play.-F.