would not therefore have needed to inquire whether or not she had a brother. No one can doubt that the scene of this play is laid in Christian times, yet we find the lover, when he thinks he has lost his mistress and her fortune, singing hymns to Diana in a church.

But the tragic heroine is not the real one; Beatrice, whom we could fancy playing the part of Myrrhina in the grotto of Pan, is the real life of the play; it is she who with her vivacity and wit makes it a comedy, who tilts with every gentleman she meets, who is outdone by no one in audacious jesting, whose tongue, in fact, recognises no law of decorum or scarcely of modesty, but who, when the time comes for facing the hard trials of life, throws off the mask of merriment, and proves herself to be a right noble lady, with a soul as much alive to truth and honour as if she had never perpetrated a wild jest. It is she and her lover Benedick who give a character to Much Ado about Nothing,' though the stratagem by which they are assumed to be brought together be somewhat too transparent and farcical. Bishop Wordsworth, in the book he has written On Shakespeare's Use of the Bible,' makes no mention, I believe, of Claudio's quotation from Genesis, which he would probably have felt himself constrained to call profane-' Moreover God saw him when he was hid in the garden.' If there be wit in this, I confess myself unable to discover it, though the incident to which the speaker makes reference be obvious enough.

Dogberry and his companions who figure in this play are no doubt amusing, but it is in the style of broad farce, not of comedy. Again, though Don John be a shiftless villain, he might be expected to employ a less idiotic agent than Borachio, who babbles like a

drunken cobbler about the stratagem by which Hero's fortunes are blighted for a time, as we are expected to interpret events, but for ever if we allow nature and experience to decide.

'Twelfth Night' is more thoroughly a comedy than 'Much Ado about Nothing.' It has several original characters: Viola, Maria, Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, the Duke, Orsino, and even Olivia, whose extreme wantonness distinguishes her from the most forward of Shakespeare's heroines.

Malvolio also is an original character, though in the development of his peculiarities Shakespeare is scarcely consistent. He is called a Puritan, but has none of those qualities by which Puritans differenced themselves from their neighbours. He is not a stern enthusiast, but a piece of starched propriety, who imagines himself attractive, and believes his mistress to be in love with him, while he secretly despises her for deriving amusement from the babble of a barren fool. The tricks played on this man at the instigation of Maria have no doubt some ingenuity in them, though they can hardly be said to have much merit. One scene in the garden, where he picks up a letter so worded as to create in him the belief that the Countess is in love with him, enables Shakespeare to indulge in that licence which characterises the comedy of the period. A clever actor often makes a hit by working out the intention of the poet in this incident, where, dwelling on the style of her handwriting, he calls up by his solemn trifling a swarm of indecent ideas without being at all conscious of the result.

I have said that the Duke is an original character, which he is rendered by the mixture of simplicity, innocence, gentleness, and fondness with which he seeks

the love of Olivia, which he fortunately loses, while he gains that of Viola. It would seem as if the amusement of comedy could seldom be ensured without absurdity. The way in which the Duke obtains a wife and Olivia a husband is so improbable that it almost neutralises the poet's abilities. Viola disguised, and playing the part of the Duke's eunuch, makes love for him to Olivia, who despises the sender, but conceives a passion for the messenger, herself enamoured of the Duke.

While this ridiculous amour is in progress, Sebastian, brother to Viola, and who has been shipwrecked with her, appears upon the scene, is mistaken for his sister by Olivia, and through this error becomes her husband. But was Sebastian of the same stature with his sister? Was he, like her, habited as the Duke's eunuch? Was he so girlish, or she so masculine, that they could not be distinguished one from the other? By overlooking these considerations Shakespeare evidently counts too much on the inattention or indulgence of audiences, which could not be so void of observation as to accept so lame a contrivance for a true picture of life.

One of the calmest and sweetest among Shakespeare's plays is the pastoral of 'As You Like It.' Here, indeed, as elsewhere, we meet with contradictions and oversights, as the education of Orlando by instinct, the lion and the palm tree in a French forest, the wooing of Rosalind as a youth, the moral transformation of Oliver; but these are of so little moment that they scarcely ruffle the current of our poetical emotions. No large picture of life which aims at being a resemblance to the truth of nature can, by whatever hand, be drawn without some admixture of evil elements.

If, however, the evil predominates the result is a tragedy; but where it is only just sufficient to produce contrast, and is ultimately vanquished by good, we may call the composition by what name we please, but it is what Shakespeare understands by a comedy, meaning by the name a play in which the agreeable predominates over its opposite.

In 'As You Like It' the elder Duke's exile and Oliver's persecution of his younger brother produce the complications necessary to the structure of a dramatic plot. The stream of events enveloping the principal characters hurries them towards one point, where, assembling outside the circle of everyday life, they enjoy the pleasures of a mode of existence analogous to the characteristics of the Golden Age: they hunt, they feast under spreading trees, they lie about and meditate, or make love in the sun on the mossy banks of streams, or house in rustic cottages just roomy enough to accommodate two or three shepherds.

The fool is here of essential service, and, sooth to say, is more at home, seeing that folly more or less modified prevails largely on all sides. Shakespeare, though somewhat too much given to vaunt the force of instinct, is almost sure at the same time to supply a corrective for his philosophical heresy; if, for example, the strongest of all instincts, that of sex, were unerring in its operations it could not be counteracted by the obstacle of a suit of clothes, which is all that stands between Orlando and Rosalind. So, again, in the case of Phoebe, a suit of clothes kindles her amorous instinct, and makes her prefer a girl disguised before a real masculine lover. But in a composition of this kind we must not look too narrowly into the causes of

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our pleasure; being under the influence of an illusion, which the cold voice of reason would dispel, we had better not invoke its influence, but give up the reins to fancy and dream out our dream to the end.

Shakespeare's Forest of Arden is enchanted ground, where the sunshine of genius streams between the trunks of trees, over the quivering face of brooks, down green glades and hollows, where herds of wild deer frisk and gambol among the thickets. Here, if anywhere, love may be the ruling power; it was meant, perhaps, to rival Sidney's 'Arcadia,' which, by its exquisite pictures of nature, it eclipses altogether. Touchstone gives us the keynote to the performance. In the ordering of his mode of life he is willing to submit to Civilisation if she will come promptly to his aid; if not, he will abjure her, and recognise the authority of free nature. His perplexity is about taking a wife, and his logic runs thus: if there be a priest forthcoming he will marry; if not, he will dispense with the ceremony, and live with Audrey like the other denizens of the wilderness. All the inhabitants of the forest, from the Duke downwards, conform more or less strictly to this system, and hence the indefinable charm which rests upon the whole play. When the repentance of the younger Duke brings in the influence of law and order, the gardens of Irem disappear, and are replaced by the hard realities of a French dukedom.

Hunter is right in tracing the origin of The Tempest' to the 'Orlando Furioso,' which has a history and geography of its own. Astolfo's kingdom and Prospero's island are situated in the same quarter of the world, and have nothing to do with Hakluyt or Malte-Brun. Sir John Mandeville himself never visited them, not even when he beheld torrents of