known in France, even in the rudest essays of dramatic art; and the influence of the clergy, by purging the comic stage of that excessive immorality which it exhibited elsewhere, also deprived it of that malicious and sustained gayety which constitutes the essence of true comedy. The habits of mind which were entertained among the people by the minstrels and their ballads, allowed the introduction, even into those compositions which were most exclusively devoted to mirthfulness, of some touches of those. emotions which comedy in France can never admit without losing its name, and becoming melodrama. Among truly national works, the only thoroughly comic play which the English stage possessed before the time of Shakspeare, "Gammer Gurton's Needle," was composed for a college, and modeled in accordance with the classic rules. The vague titles given to dramatic works, such as play, interlude, history, or even ballad, scarcely ever indicate any distinction of style. Thus, between that which was called tragedy and that which was sometimes named comedy, the only essential difference consisted in the dénouement, according to the principles laid down in the fifteenth century by the monk Lydgate, who "defines a comedy to begin with complaint and to end with gladness, whereas tragedy begins in prosperity and ends in adversity."

Thus, at the advent of Shakspeare, the nature and destiny of man, which constitute the materials of dramatic poetry, were not divided or classified into different branches of art. When art desired to introduce them on the stage, it accepted them in their entirety, with all the mixtures. and contrasts which they present to observation; nor was the public taste inclined to complain of this. The comic portion of human realities had a right to take its place

wherever its presence was demanded or permitted by truth; and such was the character of civilization, that tragedy, by admitting the comic element, did not derogate from truth in the slightest degree. In such a condition of the stage and of the public mind, what could be the state of comedy, properly so called? How could it be permitted to claim to bear a particular name, and to form a distinct style? It succeeded in this attempt by boldly leaving those realities in which its natural domain was neither respected nor acknowledged; it did not limit its efforts to the delineation of settled manners or of consistent characters; it did not propose to itself to represent men and things under a ridiculous but truthful aspect; but it became a fantastic and romantic work, the refuge of those amusing improbabilities which, in its idleness or folly, the imagination delights to connect together by a slight thread, in order to form from them combinations capable of affording diversion or interest, without calling for the judg ment of the reason. Graceful pictures, surprises, the curiosity which attaches to the progress of an intrigue, mistakes, quid-pro-quos, all the witticisms of parody and travestie, formed the substance of this inconsequent diversion. The conformation of the Spanish plays, a taste for which was beginning to prevail in England, supplied these gambols of the imagination with abundant frame-works and alluring models. Next to their chronicles and ballads, collections of French or Italian tales, together with the romances of chivalry, formed the favorite reading of the people. Is it strange that so productive a mine and so easy a style should first have attracted the attention of Shakspeare? Can we feel astonished that his young and brilliant imagination hastened to wander at will among such subjects, free from the yoke of probabilities,

and excused from seeking after serious and vigorous combinations? The great poet, whose mind and hand proceeded, it is said, with such equal rapidity that his manuscript scarcely contained a single erasure, doubtless yielded with delight to those unrestrained gambols in which he could display without labor his rich and varied faculties. He could put any thing he pleased into his comedies, and he has, in fact, put every thing into them, with the exception of one thing which was incompatible with such a system, namely, the ensemble which, making every part concur toward the same end, reveals at every step the depth of the plan and the grandeur of the work. It would be difficult to find in Shakspeare's tragedies a single conception, position, act, or passion, or degree of vice or virtue, which may not also be met with in some one of his comedies; but that which in his tragedies is carefully thought out, fruitful in result, and intimately connected with the series of causes and effects, is in his comedies only just indicated, and offered to our sight for a móment to dazzle us with a passing gleam, and soon to disappear in a new combination. In "Measure for Measure," Angelo, the unworthy governor of Vienna, after having condemned Claudio to death for the crime of having seduced a young girl whom he intended to marry, himself attempts to seduce Isabella, the sister of Claudio, by promising her brother's pardon as a recompense for her own dishonor; and when, by Isabella's address in substituting another girl in her place, he thinks he has received the price of his infamous bargain, he gives orders to hasten Claudio's execution. Is not this tragedy? Such a fact might well be placed in the life of Richard the Third, and no crime of Macbeth's presents this excess of wickedness. But in "Macbeth" and "Richard

III.," crime produces the tragic effect which belongs to it, because it bears the impress of probability, and because real forms and colors attest its presence: we can discern the place which it occupies in the heart of which it has taken possession: we know how it gained admission, what it has conquered, and what remains for it to subjugate: we behold it incorporating itself by degrees into the unhappy being whom it has subdued: we see it living, walking, and breathing with a man who lives, walks, and breathes, and thus communicates to it his character, his own individuality. In Angelo, crime is only a vague abstraction, connected en passant with a proper name, with no other motive than the necessity of making that person commit a certain action which shall produce a certain position, from which the poet intends to derive certain effects. Angelo is not presented to us at the outset either as a rascal or as a hypocrite; on the contrary, he is a man of exaggeratedly severe virtue. But the progress of the poem requires that he should become criminal, and criminal he becomes; when his crime is committed, he will repent of it as soon as the poet pleases, and will find himself able to resume without effort the natural course of his life, which had been interrupted only for a moment.

Thus, in Shakspeare's comedy, the whole of human life passes before the eyes of the spectator, reduced to a sort of phantasmagoria-a brilliant and uncertain reflection of the realities portrayed in his tragedy. Just when the truth seems on the point of allowing itself to be caught, the image grows pale, and vanishes; its part is played, and it disappears. In the "Winter's Tale," Leontes is as jealous, sanguinary, and unmerciful as Othello; but his jealousy, born suddenly, from a mere caprice, at the moment when it is necessary that the plot should thicken, F

loses its fury and suspicion as suddenly, as soon as the action has reached the point at which it becomes requisite to change the situation. In "Cymbeline"-which, notwithstanding its title, ought to be numbered among the comedies, as the piece is conceived in entire accordance with the same system-Iachimo's conduct is just as knavish and perverse as that of Iago in "Othello;" but his character does not explain his conduct, or, to speak more correctly, he has no character; and, always ready to cast off the rascal's cloak, in which the poet has enveloped him, as soon as the plot reaches its term, and the confession of the secret, which he alone can reveal, becomes necessary to terminate the misunderstanding between Posthumus and Imogen, which he alone has caused, he does not even wait to be asked, but, by a spontaneous avowal, deserves to be included in that general amnesty which should form the conclusion of every comedy.

I might multiply these examples to infinity; they abound not only in Shakspeare's early comedies, but also in those which succeeded the composition of his best tragedies. In all, we should find characters as unstable as passions, and resolutions as changeful as characters. Do not expect to find probability, or consecutiveness, or profound study of man and society; the poet cares little for these things, and invites you to follow his example. To interest by the development of positions, to divert by variety of pictures, and to charm by the poetic richness of details -this is what he aims at; these are the pleasures which he offers. There is no interdependence, no concatenation of events and ideas; vices, virtues, inclinations, intentions, all become changed and transformed at every step. Even absurdity does not always continue to characterize the individual whom it distinguishes at the outset. In "Cym