114 NOTES ON MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. And what poor duty cannot do, yet would, Ib. sc. 2. Puck. Now the hungry lion roars, And the wolf behowls the moon; Very Anacreon in perfectness, proportion, grace, and spontaneity! So far it is Greek ;but then add, O! what wealth, what wild ranging, and yet what compression and condensation of, English fancy! In truth, there is nothing in Anacreon more perfect than these thirty lines, or half so rich and imaginative. They form a speckless diamond. COMEDY OF ERRORS. THE myriad-minded man, our, and all men's, Shakspeare, has in this piece presented us with a legitimate farce in exactest consonance with the philosophical principles and character of farce, as distinguished from comedy and from entertainments. A proper farce is mainly distinguished from comedy by the license allowed, and even required, in the fable, in order to produce strange and laughable situations. The story need not be probable, it is enough that it is possible. A comedy would scarcely allow even the two Antipholises; because, although there have been instances of almost indistinguishable likeness in two persons, yet these are mere individual accidents, casus ludentis naturæ, and the verum will not excuse the inverisimile. But farce dares add the two Dromios, and is justified in so doing by the laws of its end and constitution. In a word, farces commence in a postulate, which must be granted. ACT I. sc. 1. Oli. What, boy! AS YOU LIKE IT. Orla. Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this. Oli. Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain? There is a beauty here. The word 'boy' naturally provokes and awakens in Orlando the sense of his manly powers; and with the retort of elder brother,' he grasps him with firm hands, and makes him feel he is no boy. Ib. Oli. Farewell, good Charles.-Now will I stir this gamester: I hope, I shall see an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why, hates nothing more than him. Yet he's gentle; never school'd, and yet learn'd; full of noble device; of all sorts enchantingly beloved! and, indeed, so much in the heart of the world, and especially of my own people, who best know him, that I am altogether misprized: but it shall not be so long; this wrestler shall clear all. This has always appeared to me one of the most un-Shakspearian speeches in all the genuine works of our poet; yet I should be nothing surprized, and greatly pleased, to find it hereafter a fresh beauty, as has so often happened to me with other supposed defects of great men. 1810. It is too venturous to charge a passage in Shakspeare with want of truth to nature; and yet at first sight this speech of Oliver's expresses truths, which it seems almost impossible that any mind should so distinctly, so livelily, and so voluntarily, have presented to itself, in connection with feelings and intentions so malignant, and so contrary to those which the qualities expressed would naturally have called forth. But I dare not say that this seeming unnaturalness is not in the nature of an abused wilfulness, when united with a strong intellect. In such characters there is sometimes a gloomy self-gratification in making the absoluteness of the will (sit pro ratione voluntas!) evident to themselves by setting the reason and the conscience in full array against it. 1818. Ib. sc. 2. Celia. If you saw yourself with your eyes, or knew yourself with your judgment, the fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more equal enterprise. Surely it should be our eyes' and 'our judg ment.' Ib. sc. 3. Cel. But is all this for your father? Ros. No, some of it is for my child's father. Theobald restores this as the reading of the older editions. It may be so; but who can doubt that it is a mistake for my father's child,' meaning herself? According to Theobald's note, a most indelicate anticipation is put into the mouth of Rosalind without reason; -and besides, what a strange thought, and how out of place, and unintelligible! Act iv. sc. 2. Take thou no scorn To wear the horn, the lusty horn; I question whether there exists a parallel instance of a phrase, that like this of 'horns' is universal in all languages, and yet for which no one has discovered even a plausible origin. TWELFTH NIGHT. ACT I. sc. 1. Duke's speech : so full of shapes is fancy, That it alone is high fantastical. Warburton's alteration of is into in is needless. 'Fancy' may very well be interpreted 'exclusive affection,' or 'passionate preference.' Thus, bird-fanciers, gentlemen of the fancy, that is, amateurs of boxing, &c. The play of assimilation,—the meaning one sense chiefly, and yet keeping both senses in view, is perfectly Shakspearian. Act ii. sc. 3. Sir Andrew's speech : An explanatory note on Pigrogromitus would have been more acceptable than Theobald's grand discovery that lemon' ought to be 'leman.' Ib. Sir Toby's speech: (Warburton's note on the Peripatetic philosophy.) Shall we rouse the night-owl in a catch, that will draw three souls out of one weaver? O genuine, and inimitable (at least I hope so) Warburton! This note of thine, if but one in five millions, would be half a one too much. Ib. sc. 4. Duke. My life upon't, young though thou art, thine eye Hath stay'd upon some favour that it loves; Hath it not, boy? Vio. A little, by your favour. Duke. What kind of woman is't? And yet Viola was to have been presented to Orsino as a eunuch!-Act i. sc. 2. Viola's speech. Either she forgot this, or else she had altered her plan. Ib. Vio. A blank, my lord: she never told her love !— But let concealment, &c. After the first line, (of which the last five words should be spoken with, and drop down in, a deep sigh) the actress ought to make a pause; and then start afresh, from the activity of thought, born of suppressed feelings, and which thought had accumulated during the brief interval, as vital heat under the skin during a dip in cold water. Ib. sc. 5. Fabian. Though our silence be drawn from us by cars, yet peace. |