In Comedy, therefore, we are first brought to consider that character, which, being involved in a possible tragic collision, is saved before the final stroke of destruction. He has already fallen into guilt, or, at least, into a conflict with some ethical principle, though he may have grounds of justification for his act. It has been noticed that the tragic conflict may be doubleboth internal and external; in like manner the Mediation of such a conflict has to be double. In the first place, the character must yield, the

must surrender his attitude of obstinate hostility. Stricken with the guilt of his conduct he must repent; that is, he must make his deed undone as far as lies in his power. Repentance is, accordingly, the great internal process of Mediation; when the individual fully sees what he has assailed, he sinks into deep contrition; this sorrow of the soul is what prepares him for a reconciliation with the Ethical World. The internal penitence being complete, we next behold the external instrumentalities of Mediation, which in Shakespeare, are of great variety; note, for instance, the last act of Winter's Tale and of Cymbeline. Suffice it to say that the repentant character is restored to all that he had lost through guilt. Chiefly, however, he is placed once more in outward harmony, as well as inward, with institutions, or with the whole Ethical World, which is thus without strife, and the individual

in it is saved. Such is the positive end of the Mediated Drama, which, in its supreme manifestation, touches the highest point of Dramatic Art, in fact, quite reaches beyond the limits of the Drama itself. Particularly in Tempest Shakespeare has written a play which bursts the old theatrical bounds, and sweeps upward into a new artistic world.

Here it is well to mark the Shakespearian use of the word "comic," which has lost in these days, its deeper meaning, and is applied to something that is merely funny. Mediation which frees the man of guilt, is not a laughable process, though it is comic in Shakespeare. It has, indeed, a tragic seriousness and is by no means provocative of mirth, either in the spectator or in the one undergoing it; still the end of the conflict is not death, the outcome is happy, the struggle is mediated, and this it is which makes the drama and the character comic, though both be serious or even somber in color.

A second and lighter phase of the Comic in Shakespeare is seen when the individual commits no act of guilt, but shows some caprice, foible, oddity, which is absurd and self-annulling. The course of the comedy then is to bring home to the man his folly, that he may recognize it and get rid of it. He is to be trained into his higher rational nature by the discipline of his foolish narrow deed. At this point also the Ethical

World peers through, into which he is received, when the obstacle is removed, which obstacle is his folly. So this second less profound phase of Comedy ends in reconciliation between the individual and the institutional or rational order above him.

The third and still more superficial phase of the Comic shows man as the sport of external accident. He is now the victim of Chance, being given over to false appearances, disguises, deceptions of the senses. His free will is scarcely involved; still he shows a limit, and that limit is his ignorance of the sensible world about him, the essence of which he does not see, but only the appearance. Here, too, then, he must be put under training; he must learn not to trust his senses too far, but to find what is under what seems, and thus to transcend his limit of ignorance. When he has taken his discipline, again the ethical order appears above him, and with it he is placed in harmony.

Thus, all three phases show the purgatorial training of man to a supreme world-order, with which at last he must come into reconciliation.

The Mediated Drama, accordingly, has a happy termination, and herein stands in direct contrast to Tragedy. It, therefore, constitutes a special division, which is, in Shakespeare, named Comedy-which word is used in two, nay, three different significations. It may mean the serious,

even sombre play — which, however, avoids the tragic end; or, on the other hand, it may mean the light, sportive play, resting entirely on subjective caprices, foibles, and oddities; or finally the play of Accident. Yet all these kinds belong to the Mediated Drama, and, hence, must ultimately be classed together. All three kinds also employ quite the same species of instrumentalities for their mediation, as Natural Resemblance, Disguise, Mistaken Identity in its various forms the nature of which will be discussed hereafter. Comedy, however, since it is a relaxation from tragic severity, has always a tendency to descend till it reaches the laugh; it gravitates, naturally, to the humorous or ridiculous phase of persons and things. From this side chiefly it has, therefore, to be considered.

II. THOUGHT AND STRUCTURE OF COMEDY.The Tragic and the Comic fade into each other by almost insensible gradations, and the greatest beauty of a poetical work often consists in the harmonious blending of these two elements. Not only in the same drama may both exist in perfect unison, but even in the same character. Great actors generally have a similar quality, and frequently it is hard to tell whether their impersonations be more humorous or more pathetic. This happy transfusion and interchange of tragic and comic coloring is one of the characteristics of supreme Art; it brings the relief along with the

pain; it furnishes the reconciliation along with the conflict. Shakespeare seems to have taken a special delight in its employment. No principle of his procedure is better known or more fully appreciated. His tragedies never fail of having their comic interludes; his comedies have, in nearly every case, a serious thread, and sometimes a background with a tragic outlook. Life is not all gloom or all delight; the cloud will obscure the sun, but the sun will illumine the cloud at least around the edges.

Still, the Comic is not the Tragic, however subtle may be their intertwining, and however rapid their interaction. They rest upon diverse, and in some respects opposite, principles. Criticism must seek to explain the difference between them for the understanding, and must not rest content with a vague appeal to the feeling of beauty. Tragic earnestness springs from the deep ethical principle which animates the individual. He, however, assails another ethical principle, and thereby falls into guilt. The tragic character, moreover, must have such strength and intensity of will that it can never surrender its purpose. A reconciliation is impossible; death alone can solve the conflict. In Comedy also there may be a collision with some ethical principle on the part of the individual; he may intend a violation, but not realize his inten. tion; he is foiled through external deception, or