happily; then she moves forth to solve the great conflict between the formal Law and the higher Equity, or between Justice and Mercy. The career of Portia is the grandest mediatorial sweep in Shakespeare; it mounts up and moves on the track of the World's History, in the transition from the old dispensation into the new. Hence this play may be put as the key-stone into the arch of Shakespeare's comedies.

VI. SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE POET. - We have sought to trace the fundamental principles controlling Shakespeare's procedure in his comedies, which were written through all periods of his life and bear the impress of his lightest moods as well as of his profoundest thought. How he deepened from Comedy of Errors, probably his first play, to Tempest, probably his last play, has been suggested, and will be further developed in the special treatment of the comedies, which is now to follow. But we have also endeavored to unfold and to formulate the unity which underlies his entire varied development in the realm of Comedy. Without understanding this unity we cannot be said to understand Shakespeare.

Still the question will arise, was the Poet conscious of all this planning, this philosophizing? It is a loud demand of these analytic days, a demand that must be respected, to discover how far the artist is aware of his own procedure. But it does not follow, even if it be granted that

he is unconscious in his greatest works, that they have no principle which we must obtain consciously. The Poet may have merely to put together; we have to take apart and then put together, if we would truly know his building. Doubtless it is possible to enjoy the sensuous intoxication of his poetry without ever beholding the spiritual world which it reveals; enjoyment is not knowledge.

But Shakespeare shows in many ways that he has carefully studied the principles of his Art. Indeed he would not be the universal Poet, unless his thought was as deep as his instinct, his judgment as great as his spontaneity, his self-mastery as strong as his passion. The reflective and the impulsive, the conscious and the unconscious, the thought and the deed are but the sides which make up the entirety of his genius. If we keep watch over him with attention, we shall find him uttering not only the image, but the idea, of his work. But even when there is no direct clew in the play, we can often catch and hold fast the poetic Proteus in the very act of transformation. We find his sources in old legends, stories and plays, then we compare his completed works with these sources; we note the additions, the changes, and know that they must have been made with intention. The Poet must have been aware of the alterations he was making; and would not he, certainly a reflective, prying man with a Hamlet

in his soul, ask why he made them? Still there is no design of affirming that Shakespeare was altogether the self-conscious poet; that would be to put a fatal limitation upon him from another side.

Moreover, the reader should not expect too much of interpretation; no analysis of an artistic work can take the place of the work itself. An explanation of wit is not, and ought not to be, witty, else it is no true explanation; criticism of poetry, too is not poetical, but it must quite free itself of the poetical form. A statement of the chemical ingredients of water will not take the place of water itself to a thirsty man; just as little can the sensuous charm and exhilaration of Art be supplied by an abstract account of its content. The feelings often revolt against an analytic interpretation, because people expect too much; they are dissatisfied at the absence of what seems the very essence of the production, namely, the sensuous form. But explanation implies always a change of this form, which is, therefore, just the side which disappears. Poetical natures strongly protest against the substitution of the interpretation for the poem. They are right; no such substitution ought for a moment to be entertained by the critic.

But to ascertain the rationale of an artistic product is not only reasonable, but indispensable. A great drama is a phenomenon quite as wonder

ful as any which Nature furnishes; let its law be investigated and stated as soon as possible. In fact, Art can be elevated and sustained only by the retroactive power of the critical judgment. The difference between a barbarous and a cultivated taste is acknowledged; whence does it arise? Only from the application of truer canons of Art. But these canons are originally derived from the understanding, though they descend into the feelings and become instinctive in their influence upon the taste of the individual. Simple emotion is blind; it should be directed and filled with intelligence. One should feel deeply about that which is rational; reason ought always to furnish the content. The difference between the savage and the civilized man lies, not so much in the feelings themselves, as in the objects about which each person feels. Do not, therefore, read an interpretation of a work of Art with the expectation of finding therein the imaginative or emotional element of that work-disappointment will surely follow.

COMEDY OF ERRORS.

This play should be placed first in the list of Shakespeare's Pure Comedies, not only on account of the period of its origin, but also on the score of logical development. It is simply a comedy of Situation, whose sole instrumentality is Natural Resemblance, for not even Disguise is employed. It, therefore, exhibits an action of the most external kind; human purpose is almost wholly removed from its sphere. Man is thus represented as controlled by chance; his will is reduced to the narrowest limits possible. All the individuals-even the clowns are fully in earnest in the pursuit of their ends, though these ends are an utter deception. The characters are always doing something quite different from what they seem to be doing; there is an appearance continually dancing before their senses, whereby they are led into the most ridiculous acts. Situation, into which the individual is thrust from without, through no volition of his own, is the rule of this drama; life is a complete, sensuous delusion. Nowhere else has the Poet indulged in such a play of wholly external influences.

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