illustrated aphorisms," all correspond with the idea of a youthful work; while, as in others of his early works, we also find in the personages the rudiments of characters, slightly sketched, to which he afterwards returned, and, without repeating himself, presented them again, in a varied and more individualized and living form. Thus, Biron contains within him the germs both of Benedick and of Jaques; of the one in his colloquial and mocking mood, and of the other in his graver moralities. Rosaline is (in Coleridge's phrase) "the pre-existent state of Beatrice;" though she is as yet a Beatrice of the imagination, drawn from books or report, rather than one painted from familiar acquaintance.

Both the characters and the dialogue are such as youthful talent might well invent, without much knowledge of real life, and would indeed be likely to invent, before the experience and observation of varied society. The comedy presents a picture, not of the true every-day life of the great or the beautiful, but exhibits groups of such brilliant personages as they might be supposed to appear in the artificial conversation, the elaborate and continual effort to surprise or dazzle by wit or elegance, which was the prevailing taste of the age, in its literature, its poetry, and even its pulpit; and in which the nobles and beauties of the day were accustomed to array themselves for exhibition, as in their state attire, for occasions of display. All this, when the leading idea was once caught, was quite within the reach of the young poet to imitate or surpass, with little or no personal knowledge of aristocratic-or what would now be termed fashionable-society. English literature, a century later, afforded a striking example of the success of a very young author in carrying to its perfection a similar affectation of artificial wit, and studied conversational brilliancy-I mean Congreve, whose comedies, the admiration of their own age, for their fertility of fantastically gay dialogue, bright conceits, and witty repartees, are still read for their abundance of

lively imagery and play of language, the "reciprocation of conceits and the clash of wit,"-although the personages of his scene, and all that they do and think, are wholly remote from the truth, the feeling, and the manners of real life. These productions, so remarkable in their way, were written before Congreve's twenty-fifth year; and his first and most brilliant comedy (The Old Bachelor) was acted when he was yet a minor. His talent, thus early ripe, did not afterwards expand or refine itself into the nobler power of teaching "the morals of the heart," nor even into the delightful gift of embodying the passing scenes of real life in graphic and durable pictures. But his writings afford a memorable proof how soon the graces and brilliant effects of mere intellect can be acquired, while those works of genius which require the co-operation and the knowledge of man's moral nature are of slower and later growth.

This comedy, then, marks the transition of Shakespeare's mind through the Congreve character of invention and dialogue; that of lively and artificial brilliancy-a region in which he did not long loiter

"But stoop'd to truth, and moraliz'd his song."

These remarks apply to the general contexture of the comedy, and the greater part of the dialogue. But it must not be overlooked that the whole is not the work of a mere boy. It had been played before Queen Elizabeth, according to the title-page of the edition of 1598, “this last Christmas," and, as it then shortly after appeared "newly corrected and augmented," it is probable that the author had followed the fashion of his times, when (according to Mr. Collier) "it was common for dramatists to revise and improve their plays, when they were selected for exhibition at court." It does not imply any great presumption of criticism, or demand peculiar delicacy of discrimination, to separate many of these acknowledged additions from the lighter and less valuable.

materials in which they are inserted. Rosaline's character of Biron in the second act, and her dialogue with him at the winding up of the drama, and Biron's speeches in the first and at the end of the fourth act, are among the passages which appropriate themselves at once to the period of the composition of the Midsummer-Night's Dream or the Merchant of Venice, not less in the mood of thought than in the peculiar poetic style and melody.

The story itself is but slight, the incidents few, and the higher characters, though varied, are but sketchily drawnat least, taking the author's own maturer style of execution in that way as the standard. There was, therefore, no very great effort of original invention in either respect; but whatever there is, either of plot or character, belongs to the author alone for the diligence of the critics and antiquarians (Steevens, Skottowe, Collier, etc.) who have been most successful in tracing out the rough materials of romance, tradition, or history used by Shakespeare for the construction of his dramas, has entirely failed in discovering any thing of the kind in any older author, native or foreign, to which he could have been indebted on this occasion. It is well worthy of remark that Shakespeare, in his earlier works, bestowed more of the labour of invention upon his plot and incidents than he generally did afterwards, when he usually selected known personages, to whom and to the outline of whose story the popular mind was already somewhat familiar—thus, probably quite unconsciously, adopting from his own experience the usage of the great Greek dramatists. It may be that the impress of reality, which the circumstance of familiar names and events lends to the drama, more than compensated for any pleasure that mere novelty of incident could give either to the author or his audience. But, in his characters of broad humour, Shakespeare is here, as he always is, original and inventive. Although the Pedant and the Braggart are characters familiar to the old Italian stage, yet if the drama

:

tist derived the general notion of such personages, as fitted for stage-effect, from any Italian source (for the presumption is but remote), still he assuredly painted them and their affectations from the life; these being characters, as Coleridge justly observes, which "a country town and a schoolboy's observation might supply."

All the personages of broader humour, in spite of their extravagances and droll absurdities, have still an air of truth, a solidity of effect, which at once indicates that, however heightened and exaggerated, still they came upon the stage from the real world, and not from the author's fancy; and this solidity and reality tend to give a more unreal and shadowy tone to the other and more courtly and poetic personages of the comedy. Such a remark can apply only to Shakespeare's very early dramatic works. The other comic creations of the second stage of the poet's career-Launcelot Gobbo, or Falstaff-do not command the temporary illusion of the stage more than the nobler personages with whom they are contrasted. Juliet is as true and real as her Nurse.

[From Knight's "Pictorial Shakspere." *]

Charles Lamb was wont to call Love's Labour's Lost the Comedy of Leisure. 'T is certain that in the commonwealth of King Ferdinand of Navarre we have,

"all men idle, all;

And women too."

The courtiers, in their pursuit of "that angel knowledge," waste their time in subtle contentions, how that angel is to be won; the ladies from France spread their pavilions in the sunny park, and there keep up their round of jokes with their "wit's peddler," Boyet, "the nice;" Armado listens to his page while he warbles "Concolinel;" Jaquenetta, though she is "allowed for the dey," seems to have no dairy *Pictorial Edition of Shakspere, edited by Charles Knight (2d ed. London, 1867), vol. ii. of Comedies, p. 130 fol.

to look after; Costard acts as if he were neither ploughman nor swineherd, and born for no other work than to laugh forever at Moth, and, in the excess of his love for that "pathetical nit," to exclaim, "An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread;" the schoolmaster appears to be without scholars, the curate without a cure, the constable without watch and ward. There is, indeed, one parenthesis of real business connected with the progress of the action-the difference between France and Navarre, in the matter of Aquitaine. But the settlement of this business is deferred till "to-morrow "-the "packet of specialities " is not come; and whether Aquitaine goes back to France, or the hundred thousand crowns return to Navarre, we never learn. This matter, then, being postponed till a more fitting season, the whole set abandon themselves to what Dr. Johnson calls "strenuous idleness." The king and his courtiers forswear their studies, and every man becomes a lover and a sonneteer; the refined traveller of Spain resigns himself to his passion for the dairy-maid; the schoolmaster and the curate talk learnedly after dinner; and, at last, the king, the nobles, the priest, the pedant, the braggart, the page, and the clown join in one dance of mummery, in which they all laugh, and are laughed at. But still all this idleness is too energetic to warrant us in calling this the Comedy of Leisure. Let us try again. Is it not the Comedy of Affectations?

Molière, in his Précieuses Ridicules, has admirably hit off one affectation that had found its way into the private life of his own times. The ladies aspired to be wooed after the fashion of the Grand Cyrus. Madelon will be called Polixène, and Cathos Aminte. They dismiss their plain honest lovers, because marriage ought to be at the end of the romance, and not at the beginning. They dote upon Mascarille (the disguised lackey) when he assures them "Les gens de qualité savent tout sans avoir jamais rien appris."