with such an arrangement of his lines that they would present the form of the beauty they described. No, neither Music, Painting, Sculpture, nor Poetry will accept divided homage. Art, like Falstaff's sack, must be "simple, of itself." a draught not of mingled pleasures; but pure,— unmixed even with kindred delights.

ACT I. SCENE 1.

"Thes. Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires:
Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,
You can endure the livery of a nun,
For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd,
To live a barren sister all your life,

Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
Thrice blessed they, that master so their blood,
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;

But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,

Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness."

"But earthlier happy is the rose distilled." Pope and Johnson proposed to read "earlier happy," and Steevens "earthly happy." Capell reads "earthly happier," and Mr. Knight without his usual deference to the original text, and regard for the most obvious meaning, adopts the latter reading, on the ground that "earthlier happie," the reading of the first folio and the quartos, might have been misprinted for "earthlie happier." So it might; but what need of supposing a misprint? Earthly' is a good adjective, and earthlier' is its proper comparative. Theseus has just described a religious state which makes those who adopt it "thrice blessed." He then speaks of another state, which confers another kind of happiness. Each ensures happiness, but happiness of a different nature. When

he discriminates between the two, he, speaks, not of their degrees of happiness, but of their kind. The latter is a happiness earthlier, that is, more consistent with the natural instincts of the human heart, than the former. 'Earthly happier,' makes the distinction, or at least the comparison, one of degree. It perverts the sense, or substitutes a new one, and one not so natural and Shakesperian; and gives us, besides, an awkward new phrase for a graceful old one. Why make it?

[Since the foregoing remarks were written, Mr. Collier's folio has appeared with the reading 'earthly, happier' in this passage. It is almost needless to notice it; for a liberty with the text which is refused to the reasons of such men as Capell and Mr. Knight, can surely derive no authority from the ipse dixit of a man of whom we know nothing.

Mr. Collier thinks that his folio singularly improves this passsage by reading,

"And for this intelligence,

If I have thanks, it is dear recompense."

Whether or not the change is an improvement, is a matter of taste; but whether a change is needed, is not a matter of opinion. The words of the original text are susceptible of more than one interpretation; but surely the most obvious one is the best. Steevens thus states it:-"it is a dear expense'] i. e. it will cost him much (be a severe constraint on his feelings) to make even so slight a return for my communication.”

SCENE 2.

"Bottom. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors, and so grow to a point."

One only of the characters among the human mortals in this play is very strongly marked. Who but Bottom, the life and soul of the interlude of Pyramus and Thisbe! Many have been inclined to look upon Bottom only as a stolid lout; and he has even been presented as such with success upon the stage. The conception is directly at variance with Shakespeare's delineation of the character.

Watch Bottom, and see that from the time he enters until he disappears, he not only claims to be, but is, the man of men, the Agamemnon of the "rude mechanicals" of Athens. No sooner is the subject of the play opened, than he instantly assumes the direction of it, which is acquiesced in by his fellows, as a matter of course. He tells Peter Quince what to do, and Peter does it. He has the best part assigned to him; but the bottomless stomach of his vanity claims every character. He wants the lion's part literally as well as metaphorically. But there is some reason for all this besides his vanity: he is the best among them, and they know it. He has impressed them with his superiority, and has a moral as well as a mental influence upon them. Peter Quince, who is, after a clownish fashion, a shrewd, politic fellow, sees the necessity for conciliating him, and flatters him into self-complacent satisfaction, by telling him that "Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man as one shall see in a summer's day, a most lovely, gentlemanlike man; therefore, you must needs play Pyramus." The green-room and the world before the curtain see many a like manœuvre now-a-days.

Bottom criticises boldly at the rehearsal; and his cri

ticisms are received with deference. When Snug, the Joiner, is at his wit's end about bringing in a wall, he appeals instantly to Bottom, who, with sublime readiness of resource, instantly affords the needful counsel. In this very Scene, after his "translation," he says to Titania: "to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-adays. The more the pity that some honest neighbors will not make them friends." It is no idiotic lout who utters this, and who makes those humorous replies to Moth, Mustard-seed, Pease-blossom and Cobweb, and who, on coming to himself, shrinks from saying to himself what he thought he was, and what he thought he had upon his head. And when Peter Quince is forced to the sad conclusion that "out of doubt he is transported," see the consternation of the whole company! "The play goes not forward," says Flute the Bellows Mender. "It is not possible;" replies Quince, "you have not a man in all Athens able to discharge Pyramus but he;" and Flute soon after bewails the sixpence a day (quite a salary in Shakespeare's time,) which " Bully Bottom" has lost by his asinine transformation. Finally, when Bottom comes in upon them, no more of a donkey than he had ever been, hear Peter Quince's delighted exclamation : "Bottom!-O most courageous day! O most happy hour!" The shrewd fellow has a double interest in the restoration of his leading actor; for good Peter, beyond a question, is the author of that play of Pyramus and Thisbe ;-it peeps out on all occasions.

No,-Bottom is no stupid lout. He is a compound of profound ignorance and omnivorous conceit; but these are tempered by good nature, decision of character, and some mother wit. That which gives him his individuality, does. not depend upon his want of education, his position, or his calling. All the schools of Athens could not have reasoned it out of him; and all the gold of Croesus would have made

him but a gilded Bottom after all. The race of Bottoms did not become extinct with Nick; nor have we reason to believe he was Nicholas the First. His descendants have not unfrequently appeared among the gifted intellects of the world. When Goldsmith, jealous of the attention which a dancing monkey attracted in a coffee-house, said, “I can do that as well," and was about to attempt it, he was but playing Bottom. As Mr. Burton renders the character, its traits are brought out with a delicate and masterly hand: its humor is exquisite. But it is not well for any of us to laugh too much at it: it is not prudent; for somebody may be by who knows us better than we know ourselves.

ACT II. SCENE 1.

"Fairy. The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats, spots you see," &c.

Mr. Collier's folio alters "tall" to all and coats" to cups; and Mr. Dyce says, that though the first of these alterations is more than questionable (and he performs well the needless task of showing that it is utterly inadmissible) the second may be right. If Mr. Dyce means to say that Shakespeare, with propriety, might have written cups for coats," few will be inclined to disagree with him. But when we have the best evidence that Shakespeare wrote coats," and none at all that he wrote cups; and when the first word is not only comprehensible but pertinent, why say that it "may be right" to change it to-any thing? It is to be regretted when a man of Mr. Dyce's position gives even a quasi sanction to an unnecessary change in the original text of Shakespeare.