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CRITICAL OPINIONS.

"THE WINTER'S TALE' is as appropriately named as 'The Midsummer Night's Dream.' It is one of those tales which are peculiarly calculated to beguile the dreary leisure of a long winter evening, and are even attractive and intelligible to childhood, while, animated by fervent truth in the delineation of character and passion, and invested with the embellishments of poetry, lowering itself, as it were, to the simplicity of the subject, they transport even manhood back to the golden age of imagination. The calculation of probabilities has nothing to do with such wonderful and fleeting adventures, when all end at last in universal joy: and, accordingly, Shakspeare has here taken the greatest licence of anachronisms and geographical errors; not to mention other incongruities, he opens a free navigation between Sicily and Bohemia, makes Giulio Romano the contemporary of the Delphic oracle. The piece divides itself in some degree into two plays. Leontes becomes suddenly jealous of his royal bosom-friend Polyxenes, who is on a visit to his court; makes an attempt on his life, from which Polyxenes only saves himself by a clandestine flight;—Hermione, suspected of infidelity, is thrown into prison, and the daughter which she there brings into the world is exposed on a remote coast;-the accused queen, declared innocent by the oracle, on learning that her infant son has pined to death on her account, falls down in a swoon, and is mourned as dead by her husband, who becomes sensible, when too late, of his error: all this makes up the first three acts. The last two are separated from these by a chasm of sixteen years; but the foregoing tragical catastrophe was only apparent, and this serves to connect the two parts. The princess, who has been exposed on the coast of Polyxenes' kingdom, grows up among low shepherds; but her tender beauty, her noble manners, and elevation of sentiment, bespeak her descent; the Crown Prince Florizel, in the course of his hawking, falls in with her, becomes enamoured, and courts her in the disguise of a shepherd; at a rural entertainment Polyxenes discovers their attachment, and breaks out into a violent rage; the two lovers seek refuge from his persecutions at the court of Leontes in Sicily, where the discovery and general reconciliation take place. Lastly, when Leontes beholds, as he imagines, the statue of his lost wife, it descends from the niche: it is she herself, the still living Hermione, who has kept herself so long concealed; and the piece ends with universal rejoicing. The jealousy of Leontes is not, like that of Othello, developed through all its causes, symptoms, and variations; it is brought forward at once full grown and mature, and is portrayed as a distempered frenzy. It is a passion whose effects the spectator is more concerned with than its origin, and which does not produce the catastrophe, but merely ties the knot of the piece. In fact, the poet might perhaps have wished slightly to indicate that Hermione, though virtuous, was too warm in her efforts to please Polyxenes; and it appears as if this germ of inclination first attained its proper maturity in their children. Nothing can be more fresh and youthful, nothing at once so ideally pastoral and princely, as

VOL V.

the love of Florizel and Perdita; of the prince, whom love converts into a voluntary shepherd; and the princess, who betrays her exalted origin without knowing it, and in whose hands nosegays become crowns. Shakspeare has never hesitated to place ideal poetry side by side of the most vulgar prose: and in the world of reality also this is generally the case. Perdita's foster-father and his son are both made simple boors, that we may the more distinctly see how all that ennobles her belongs only to herself. Autolycus, the merry pedlar and pickpocket, so inimitably portrayed, is necessary to complete the rustic feast, which Perdita on her part seems to render meet for an assemblage of gods in disguise."-SCHLEGEL.

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TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

PRELIMINARY NOTICE.

FOURTEEN years before the appearance of the folio of 1623, a quarto edition of this play was published under the title of "The Famous Historie of Troylus and Cresseid. Excellently expressing the beginning of their loves, with the conceited wooing of Pandarus Prince of Licia. Written by William Shakespeare. London Imprinted by G. Eld for R. Bonian and H. Walley, and are to be sold at the spred Eagle in Paules Church-yeard, over against the great North doore. 1609." In the same year, another edition, or rather a second issue of the above, was printed with a different title-page,-"The Historie of Troylus and Cresseida. As it was acted by the Kings Maiesties servants at the Globe. Written by William Shakespeare. London," &c. Nor is this the only diversity between the two issues, for the first contains the following curious prefatory address, which was omitted in all the subsequent copies,

"A never Writer to an ever Reader. NEWES.

"Eternall reader, you have heere a new play, never stal'd with the Stage, never clapper-clawd with the palmes of the vulger, and yet passing full of the palme comicall; for it is a birth of your braine, that never undertooke any thing commicall vainely and were but the vaine names of Commedies changde for the titles of commodities, or of Playes for Pleas, you should see all those grand censors, that now stile them such vanities, flock to them for the maine grace of their gravities; especially this author's Commedies, that are so fram'd to the life, that they serve for the most common Commentaries of all the actions of our lives, shewing such a dexteritie and power of witte, that the most displeased with Playes are pleasd with his Commedies. And all such dull and heavy-witted worldlings, as were never capable of the witte of a Commedie, comming by report of them to his representations, have found that witte there that they never found in themselves, and have parted better-wittied then they came; feeling an edge of witte set upon them, more then ever they dreamd they had brain to grinde it on. So much and such savoured salt of witte is in his Commedies, that they seeme (for their height of pleasure) to be borne in that sca that brought forth Venus. Amongst all there is none more witty then this: And had I time I would comment upon it, though I know it needs not, (for so much as will make you thinke your testerne well bestowd) but for so much worth, as even poore I know to be stuft in it. It deserves such a labour, as well as the best Commedie in Terence or Plautus. And beleeve this, that when hee is gone, and his Commedies out of sale, you will scramble for them, and set up a new English Inquisition. Take this for a warning, and at the perrill of your pleasures losse, and Judgements, refuse not, nor like this the lesse for not being sullied with the smoaky breath of the multitude: but thanke fortune for the scape it hath made amongst you. Since by the grand possessors wills, I beleeve, you should have prayd for them rather then been prayd. And so I leave all such to bea prayd for (for the states of their wits healths) that will not praise it.—VALE."

From this address we may conclude that, when first published, the piece had not been acted, or only acted at court, and that, being shortly after represented on the stage, it was thought necessary to withdraw the preface, and substitute another title-page.

In Henslowe's Diary is an entry, showing that in April, 1599, Decker and Chettle were occupied in writing a play, called "Troilus and Cressida," and this may have been the "booke" recorded on the Stationers' Registers, February 7th, 1602-3,-

"Mr. Roberts] The booke of Troilus and Cressida, as yt is acted by my
Lo. Chamberlens men."

Farther, as the company to which Shakespeare belonged was entitled the Lord Chamberlain's Servants" until the year 1603, and as some parts of his "Troilus and Cressida," are evidently the production of an inferior writer, it is not at all improbable that the earlier piece formed the basis of the later one.

In the preface to his alteration of the present play, Dryden remarks that, "The original story was written by one Lollius, a Lombard, in Latin verse, and translated by Chaucer into English." "Twere to consider too curiously," perhaps, to enter here upon the question whether "Myn auctor Lollius" were a tangible personage, or the mere creation of the old bard's fancy; we may be satisfied the plot of the drama is immediately founded upon the poem of "Troylus and Cryseyde." Upon this point there can be no reasonable doubt; and Mr. Godwin, in his "Life of Chaucer," complains, with reason, that the commentators have dealt ungenerously towards the elder poet in not acknowledging the honour conferred upon him by the immortal dramatist,-"It would be extremely unjust to quit the consideration of Chaucer's poem of 'Troilus and Cresseide,' without noticing the high honour it has received in having been made the foundation of one of the plays of Shakespear. There seems to have been in this respect a sort of conspiracy in the commentators upon Shakespear against the glory of our old English bard. In what they have written concerning this play, they make a very slight mention of Chaucer; they have not consulted his poem for the purpose of illustrating this admirable drama; and they have agreed, as far as possible, to transfer to another author the honour of having supplied materials to the tragic artist. Dr. Johnson says, 'Shakespeare has in his story followed, for the greater part, the old book of Caxton, which was then very popular; but the character of Thersites, of which it makes no mention, is a proof that this play was written after Chapman had published his version of Homer. Mr. Steevens asserts that 'Shakspeare received the greatest part of his materials for the structure of this play from the Troye Boke of Lydgate.' And Mr. Malone repeatedly treats the History of the Destruction of Troy, translated by Caxton,' as 'Shakspeare's authority' in the composition of this drama. The fact is, that the play of Shakespear we are here considering has for its main foundation the poem of

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