dramas that it was usual with our poet to express the most profound truths through dramatic characters, and yet partially screen them from common inspection by the circumstances, or the sort of character made the vehicle of them-such as Jaques and others. The reader need not be surprised therefore to find the dramatis personæ of the "merry and tragical" Interlude to be boorish and idiotic, while it is worth remarking that even the wall, as also the other parts, are all represented by men, unconscious of their calling.

We now turn to the drama, and remark, that it was designed by the poet that a secret meaning should be inferred by the reader. This appears from several very decisive passages, besides the general inference to be drawn from the fact, that the Interlude in the 5th Act of the drama, more than all the rest of the play, if taken literally, is what Hippolyta says of it-the silliest stuff that was ever seen. No reasonable man can imagine that the author of so many beauties as are seen in this drama, could have. introduced the absurd nonsense of the Interlude without having in his mind a secret purpose, which is to be divined by the aid of the reader's imagination—

according to the answer of Theseus to the remark of Hippolyta, just recited. But the imagination must here be understood as a poetic creative gift or endowment, and not limited to mere "fancy's images; " for Hippolyta herself, though here speaking of the play, gives us a clue to something deeper than what appears on the surface. She, in allusion to all the marvels the bridal party had just heard, observes,

But all the story of the night told over,

And all their minds transfigured so together,
More witnesseth than fancy's images,

And grows to something of great constancy.

This is plainly a hint that these "fables and fairy toys," as Theseus calls them, may be the vehicle of some constant truth or principle.

Again:

Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;

But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.

That is, when the truth, signified in the "show," becomes manifest, all wonder will cease, for the object of its introduction will be understood.

When Hippolyta pronounces the show "silly stuff," which, of course, it is, unless there be a secret

purpose, Theseus answers: "The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them;" that is, as we have said, the "show" calls for the exercise of the poetic or creative imagination to bring the kernel out of the husk or shell in which it is presented by the show. The poet himself has told us, in the drama itself, the action of the so-called gift, when he describes the poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, as glancing from heaven to earth, and from earth to heaven, and as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown, the poet's pen turns them to shapes, and "gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name." But in these airy nothings of the poet are to be found some of the truest revelations of life.

We consider now, that we have no need to dwell upon the points in detail suggested by the closing Act of the drama, which contains the doctrine we have set out as mystically contained in the Sonnets. The curious reader, who desires to exercise his own thought, while following that of the poet, expressed through the imprisoning forms of language, will see, with the indications we have given, the purpose of the "mirthful tragedy" of Pyramus and Thisbe. He will see the signification of the two characters or

66

principles, figured in Pyramus and Thisbe, with the wall, "the vile wall which did these lovers sunder." Through this wall (the dull substance of the flesh), the lovers may indeed communicate, but only by a whisper, very secretly; " because the intercourse of spirit with spirit is a secret act of the soul in a sense of its unity with the spirit. The student will readily catch the meaning of the "moon-shine," or naturelight, in this representation, the moon being always taken as nature in all mystic writings. He will see the symbolism of the "dog"-the watch-dog, of course, representing the moral guard in a naturelife; as also the bush of thorns, ever ready to illustrate the doctrine that the way of the transgressor is hard. The student will notice the hint that the lovers meet by moonlight and at a tomb-a symbolic indication of the greatest mystery in life (to be found in death); and he will understand the office of the lion, which tears, not Thisbe herself, but only her "mantle," or what the poet calls the "extern" of life; and finally will observe that the two principles both disappear; for the unity cannot become mystically visible, until the two principles are mystically lost sight of

It should not escape notice that the two prin

66

ciples are co-equal; that a mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which Thisbe, is the better"-simply figured as man and woman.

The student of Midsummer-Night's Dream may observe two very marked features in the play; one, in the 1st Scene of the 2d Act, where the "juice," which induces so many absurdities, crosspurposes, and monstrosities, is described as the juice of (a certain flower called love-in-) idleness: the other, in the 1st Scene of the 4th Act, where we see that all of the irregularities resulting from idleness are cured by the simple anointment of the eyes by what is called "Dian's bud"--which has such "force and blessed power" as to bring all of the faculties back to nature and truth,-of which Dian is one of the accepted figures in all mystic writings.

The readers of this play, who look upon these indications as purely arbitrary and without distinct meaning, may, indeed, perceive some of the scattered beauties of this fairy drama, but must certainly miss its true import.

1