guishes the poet's maturer works. The action is represented more from the side of its outward form and direct appearance, but, so to say, only in coloured outlines-light and shade are indicated only by gentle touches —the figures therefore do not stand out with sufficient fulness and clearness, there is still a want of sharpness in the characterisation, of clearness in the grouping, of distinctness in the coherency and in the harmonious connection of the several parts among one another. The frequent occurrence of scenes of quarrel and dispute, occasioned by the perpetual errors and mistakes, reminds one of the original and popular form which comedy assumed, and in which it first met with approbation. Even the striking psychological improbability that the one of the two Menæchmi - Antipholus of Syracuse- should go forth with the express purpose of seeking his lost brother, and that, in spite of all the obvious mistakes of his identity with another exactly like himself, it should never occur to him that he is in the very place where his twin-brother had been cast-might be cited as a proof of the early origin of the piece, were it not so gross, so self-evident that it could not possibly have escaped the notice of young Shakspeare. This improbability is accordingly made a characteristic feature of the piece, and points to a definite intention on the part of the poet. Why, we have to ask, why did Shakspeare intentionally ignore this improbability? Why did he not give the journey of Antipholus to Ephesus some other motive? Perhaps because he did not consider it necessary in mere comedy-where all is intended for pure fun and laughter-to take any heed of things which would only strike and offend mere reflecting reason, and not at all affect the poetical conception; perhaps, however, for another and deeper

reason.

If we regard the whole as a whole, as the poetical picture of human doings and actions, the comedy appears to be an amusing satire on man's power of observation and recognition. The accidental resemblance of two pairs of twins, suffices to put almost a whole town into confusion. Life, itself, is conceived, so to say, as a great and manyjointed mistake, encountered by ignorance and blunders in

all possible forms. Hence at the very outset we find the life of the father of the two twin brothers in danger, owing to an ignorance of the Ephesian law-a secondary motive of the action which might otherwise appear a mere superfluous appendage. Hence Adriana's unreasonable jealousy of her husband, which again is but a mistake and gives rise to further mistakes. Hence the perpetually increasing complication, which in time deprives all the dramatic characters of their proper consciousness, and which accordingly is not solved till the two pairs of twins stand face to face, although the possibility of two such pairs of twins being confounded is sufficiently obvious. Under the cloak of the comic we have striking evidence of the, in reality, very serious experience in life, that human knowledge and ignorance dovetail into one another and are mixed up together; that it is very easy for that which we suppose ourselves to know most surely and most distinctly, to turn out erroneous and delusive. The wife mistakes her husband, the master his servant, and the servant his master, the sister-in-law her brother-in-law, the friend his friend, and finally even the father his son. In this way the simplest, most natural and most important fundamental relations of life become a chaotic complication and dispute. We are shown how quickly everything becomes confused and perverted, as soon as one of the laws of life—a perfectly external and apparently unimportant law-is broken by a freak of nature, as soon as but the difference of the outward form-by means of which the perception of the senses distinguishes one individual from another-is destroyed. The psychological improbability, spoken of above, is introduced into this general confusion and complication like an integral part of the whole. I mean to say that the fact of Antipholus of Syracuse being bewildered by the strange things that befall him-his forgetting his own intention, his losing sight of the aim and object of his journey and overlooking just that with which he himself stands in obvious relation-agrees perfectly with the meaning of the play, as well as with the bold and strongly-marked outlines in which the young poet has sketched his picture.

It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that I do

not at all wish to maintain that these more philosophical than poetical considerations-although in my opinion they are not very different--were the directly conscious motives that induced the young poet to choose the subject, and that guided him in its development. But I do believe that his innate appreciation for the beautiful, his fine feeling for unity and harmony, or, in other words, that a genial instinct (it may be unconsciously) compelled him to make the attempt even to outdo Plautus' Comedy of Errors,' by introducing a second and exactly similar pair of twins; by this means, as well as by a number of secondary motives, he was able to carry the errors and confusion to the highest possible pitch, and to make them affect all the circumstances and relations of life. It is only by means of this exaggeration that the subject obtains that deeper significance already alluded to, and thereby a central point which gives unity to the confused variety of persons, scenes, relations and incidents, and which holds all the several parts together. Of course, is such a state of things, it could not be devoid of improbabilities, devoid of strange occurrences and wonderful coincidences. But Shakspeare, by the very foundation which he has given to the whole -the romantic history of the family Egeon, and the distant, foreign locality which he makes the scene of his play-has taken care that common reality is removed from our sight, and has given us to understand that the question here does not concern this world, but a free, poetical creation, the picture of life, so to say, in the mirror of an unbridled fancy. It is only in the mirror of fancy that life could appear so perfectly dependent upon external form and sensuous observation; only within the comic view of life that this conception could be right; only when regarded from the one point of view, from the comic side, that it could appear so. For, true as it is that life is thus dependent, still it is not true that life is merely and wholly dependent upon sensuous experience; it is not true that human knowledge is only sensuous, a perception dependent on the eye and ear. The one-sidedness of the conception, therefore, contains within itself its own corrective; 'error' in the end destroys itself, and a scene of general recognition brings everything into order and

into the right groove. We see that 'error' may indeed, as it were, momentarily take entire hold of life, but must ultimately give way to truth, which eventually not only carries off the victory, but also leads us out of the darkness of delusion and confusion to where we recover the good which had long been missed and sought for in vain.

6

This is my reason for having placed 'The Comedy of Errors' among the comedies of fancy; I have also called it the pendant or companion piece to As You Like It,' because I consider that it is not merely fantastic in character, but that it is also internally related to ‘As You Like It.' For, as in the latter case, waywardness and caprice, the unreasonableness and inconsistency of will and action are represented as the dominant principles of life, here it is error, the unreasonableness and inconsistency of thinking and recognition. The caprice of action is, however, the correlative, the obverse of the error of recognition; both, in fact, exist only in the separation and aberration of the mind from the given reality. Both appear unfounded because they have no objective but merely a subjective basis, and for this very reason both belong to the idea of contingency, inasmuch as the latter, of course, consists only of apparent unreasonableness, of mere want of knowledge, and hence only of an apparent destruction of the necessary and general causal-nexus. Both, however, differ from one another in so far as caprice, as such, is voluntarily independent of external influences, error, on the other hand, involuntarily dependent upon circumstances and relations. For this very reason, in 'As You Like It,' the power of outward contingency is kept in the background, whereas in 'The Comedy of Errors' it is prominently brought forward. This is here at once manifest by the whole plan of the piece, which is founded upon the accidental separation of the father and mother, as well as of the two pairs of twins, by the shipwreck; likewise, all the subsequent complications proceed from the play of chance which reunites the separated family in Ephesus, and perpetually brings the father, the wife, and the servant, the friends and the acquaintances into collision with the wrong Antipholus and the wrong Dromio. The internal,

as well as the external matters of chance belong, however, to the fantastic view of life; they are the essential elements and motives in the fantastic comedy. For both alike undermine reality, which naturally rests upon the necessity of the connection between cause and effect, and disappears in the chequered and irregular play of caprice and fancy.

The circumstance that in The Comedy of Errors,' as well as in the two pieces just discussed, we find the characters sketched in but light touches, and not actually developed or fully worked out, is in perfect accordance with the conception of the fantastic comedy. For life cannot be represented in its fantastic freedom at all, unless it clothes the mind and characters of the dramatic personages in the same colouring. A character is fantastic principally by the fact that it lacks determinateness and firmness, as well as steadiness and consistency of development.

3. THE WINTER'S TALE.

Another pendant to 'As You Like It' is formed by 'The Winter's Tale.' The subject of this piece must be specially recalled to the reader's mind, as here everything depends upon a clear understanding of the complicated threads of the dramatic texture.

King Leontes of Sicilia, irritated by some trifling imprudencies on the part of his wife, is in a violent state of jealousy with his present guest and friend, King Polixenes of Bohemia. The integrity of a confidant, Camillo, whom Leontes intended to make the instrument of his revenge, enables Polixenes to escape from the designs made upon him. The Queen, however, he causes to be cast into prison, and the little daughter to whom she there gives birth is ordered to be exposed. The oracle declares the Queen to be innocent, and at the same time says that the throne of Sicilia shall be without an heir till the recovery of the exposed child. Simultaneously with this comes the intelligence of the death of the Crown Prince, upon hearing which the Queen falls down in an apparently lifeless state. This concludes the first three acts. fourth, which opens with a prologue, is supposed to begin sixteen years afterwards. The son of the King of Bohemia

The