makes perhaps the greatest distinction, metrically considered, between them and the Greek and Latin. Dactyl, mērrily. Anapæst, u u−= å pròpōs, or the first three syllables of ceremony. Amphibrachys, U v= Udělightful. = Jõhn James Jõnes. These simple feet may suffice for understanding the metres of Shakespeare, for the greater part at least ;—but Milton cannot be made harmoniously intelligible without the composite feet, the Ionics, Pæons, and Epitrites. Ib. sc. 2. Titania's speech (Theobald, adopting Warburton's reading): "Which she, with pretty and with swimming gate Follying (her womb then rich with my young squire) Oh! oh! Heaven have mercy on poor Shake- To my ears it would read far more Shakespearian thus: "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 A THE myriad-minded man, our, and all men's Shakespeare, 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 licence 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. comedy would scarcely allow even the two Antipholuses; because, although there have been instances of almost indistinguishable likeness in two persons, yet these are mere individual accidents, casus ludentis naturæ, and the rerum 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. "AS YOU LIKE IT." ACT I. sc. 1. "Oli. What, boy! Orla. Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this. THERE HERE 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 misprised: but it shall not be so long; this wrestler shall clear all." This has always appeared to me one of the most un-Shakespearian speeches in all the genuine works of our poet; yet I should be nothing surprised, 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 Shakespeare 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 |