-

P. 78. A play it is, my lord, some ten words long. So Hanmer. The old copies, "A play there is"; Collier's second folio, "A play this is."

P. 79. And what poor willing duty cannot do. So Theobald. The old text lacks willing.

P. 80. When I have seen them shiver and look pale, &c. The old text has Where instead of When.

- So Dyce.

P. 81. This man, with loam and rough-cast, doth present.— The old copies here read "with lime and rough-cast." But, in Wall's speech, a little after, they have "This loame, this rough-cast," &c. So, also, in iii. I: "And let him have some plaster, or some Lome, or some rough-cast about him."

P. 83. It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard discourse.· Farmer would read "heard in discourse," taking it as an allusion "to the many stupid partitions in the argumentative writings of the time." I suspect Farmer is right.

P. 84. Now is the mural down between the two neighbours. — So Theobald. Instead of mural, the quartos have Moon used, the folio morall.

P. 84. Here come two noble beasts in, a moon and a lion. Instead of moon, the old copies have man. Theobald's correction.

P. 85. Then know that I one Snug the joiner am,

No lion fell, nor else no lion's dam.-So Rowe, and Walker also, without knowing that Rowe had anticipated him. The old copies read "A lion fell."

P. 85. He is not crescent. - The old text has no instead of not. Corrected in Collier's second folio.

P. 86. Lys. And so the lion vanished.

Dem. And then came Pyramus.· The old copies invert the order of these two speeches. Spedding suggested the transposition.

P. 87. For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams. The old copies, quartos and first folio, have beames, second folio, streames. Knight conjectured gleams, and Walker thinks "the alliteration requires" it.

P. 88. And thus she moans. So Theobald. The old text has meanes instead of moans.

P. 89. Now the hungry lion roars,

And the wolf behowls the Moon. - The old copies have "beholds the Moon"; an obvious erratum.

P. 90. Through the house give glimmering light,
By the dead and drowsy fire;

Every elf and fairy sprite

Hop as light as bird from brier. -The first two of these lines have troubled editors a good deal. Dyce pronounces it "a most perplexing passage." Johnson proposed "Through this house in glimmering light." White changes Through to Though; but his reading, together with his explanation, seems rather to darken what is certainly none too light. Lettsom conjectures "Through this hall go glimmering light." This is both ingenious and poetical in a high degree; but he probably would not himself venture on so bold a change. I suspect that By is simply to be taken as equivalent to by means of. Taking it so, I fail to perceive any thing very dark or perplexing in the passage.

P. 91. SONG, AND DANCE.—The stage-direction here is usually printed as if what follows were the fairies' song; which is clearly wrong, the following lines being spoken by Oberon, after the song and dance are ended. As for the fairies' song on this occasion, it has never, I believe, been heard of since.

P. 91. And the owner of it, blest,

Ever shall in safety rest. — The old text inverts the order of these lines. The transposition is Staunton's. Various other changes have been proposed, such as "Ever shall it safely rest,” — “E'er shall it in safety rest," · and “Ever shall't in safety rest"; but that in the text seems, on the whole, the most satisfactory.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.

REGISTERED at the Stationers' in July, 1598, but with a

special proviso, "that it be not printed without license first had from the Right-Honourable the Lord Chamberlain." The theatrical company to which Shakespeare belonged were then known as "The Lord Chamberlain's Servants"; and the purpose of the proviso was to keep the play out of print till the company's permission were given through their patron. The play was entered again at the same place in October, 1600, his lordship's license having probably been obtained by that time. Accordingly two editions of it were published in the course of that year, one by James Roberts, the other by Thomas Heyes. These were evidently printed from two distinct manuscripts, both of which had probably been transcribed from the author's original copy. The play was never issued again, that we know of, till in the folio of 1623. The repetition of certain peculiarities shows it to have been there printed, with some alterations, from the quarto of Heyes.

The Merchant of Venice was also mentioned by Francis Meres in his Wit's Treasury, 1598. How long before that time the play was written we have no means of knowing; but, judging from the style, we cannot well assign the writing to a much earlier date; though there is some reason for thinking it may have been on the stage four years earlier; as Henslowe's Diary records The Venetian Comedy as having been originally acted in August, 1594. It is by no means certain, however, that this refers to Shakespeare's play; while the workmanship here shows such maturity and variety of power as argue against that supposal. It evinces, in a considerable degree, the easy, unlabouring freedom of conscious mastery; the persons being so entirely

under the author's control, and subdued to his hand, that he seems to let them talk and act just as they have a mind to. Therewithal the style, throughout, is so even and sustained; the word and the character are so fitted to each other; the laws of dramatic proportion are so well observed; and the work is so free from any jarring or falling-out from the due course and order of art; as to justify the belief that the whole was written in same stage of intellectual growth and furnishing.

In the composition of this play the Poet drew largely from preceding writers. Novelty of plot or story there is almost none. Nevertheless, in conception and development of character, in poetical texture and grain, in sap and flavour of wit and humour, and in all that touches the real life and virtue of the workmanship, it is one of the most original productions that ever issued from the human mind. Of the materials here used, some were so much the common stock of European literature before the Poet's time, and had been run into so many variations, that it is not easy to say what sources he was most indebted to for them.

It is beyond question that there was an earlier play running more or less upon the same or similar incidents. For Stephen Gosson published, in 1579, a tract entitled The School of Abuse, in which he mentions a certain play as "The Jew, shown at the Bull, representing the greediness of worldly choosers, and the bloody minds of usurers.” This would fairly infer that Shakespeare was not the first to combine, in dramatic form, the two incidents of the caskets and the pound of flesh: but, nothing further being now known touching the order and character of that older performance, we can affirm nothing as to how far he may have followed or used it in the composition of his play.

The original of the casket-lottery dates far back in the days of Mediæval Romance; and the substance of it was variously repeated, from time to time, by successive authors, till Shakespeare spoilt it for further use. It is met with in the Gesta Romanorum, an old and curious collection of tales; and, as the version there given is clearly identified as the one used by Shakespeare directly or indirectly, it seems hardly worth the while to notice, here, any of the other versions.