appears to be that of criticising, under skilfully disguised forms, the early Greek conception of heroic motive, if not of heroic character. Shakespeare appears to have regarded the tale of Troy divine as at bottom little better than an idealised version of the savage custom of marriage by capture, a kind of poetical gloss on the barbarous tribal wars waged in early times about women. He seems at once to have exhibited and condemned with dramatic force and intensity the motive of the whole conflict in the character of Cressida. it must be remembered that in the very earliest poem we have from Shakespeare's pen this higher note of the modern world is clearly sounded—the note that “Love is Lord of all," and that love is something infinitely higher and more divine than the lawless vagrant passion which in pagan times passed under that name. To the modern mind, while the latter is blind, selfish, and often brutal in proportion to its strength, the former is full of sympathy and self-abnegation, of an almost sacred ardour and gentleness, humility and devotion, the very heart and crown of life. While the lower passion cares only for the gratification of an intensely egoistic appetite, the nobler is ever supremely concerned for the highest good of its object. This contrast is expressed with reflective emphasis in the following stanzas towards the close of the "Venus and Adonis ":

"Call it not Love, for Love to heaven is fled,
Since sweating Lust on earth usurp'd his name;
Under whose simple semblance he hath fed

Upon fresh beauty, blotting it with blame;

Which the hot tyrant stains and soon bereaves,
As caterpillars do the tender leaves.

"Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,
But Lust's effect is tempest after sun;
Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done;
Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies;
Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies."

In this reproof of the pagan goddess of love, the higher note of the modern world is, as I have said, struck fully and clearly. It is repeated with tragic emphasis in the "Lucrece," deepened in the sonnets, and developed through all the gracious range of higher female character in the dramas.

Nowhere indeed is the vital difference in the social axes of the ancient and modern world more vividly seen, than in the contrast between the Lesbias, Delias, and Corinnas of Roman poetry, and the Mirandas, Portias, and Imogens of Shakespeare's dramas. In the one we have the monotonous ardours and disdains, the gusts and glooms, the tricks and artifices belonging to the stunted life of lower impulse; in the other, the fadeless beauty and grace, the vivacity and intelligence, the gentleness and truth of perfect womanhood. I hope, hereafter, to say something more on this tempting theme. Meanwhile, as I have had to emphasise Shakespeare's relation to the poet laureate of wandering love, it seemed right in passing to point out the higher features by which he is separated from Ovid, even in the early poems which owe most to his influence.

SHAKESPEARIAN GLOSSARIES.1

It is to us a matter of sincere regret that the observations we have now to make on this important edition of the works of Shakespeare should have been unavoidably postponed until death has removed the amiable and accomplished editor, Mr. Dyce, beyond the reach of human applause or criticism. We have been engaged for some time in a careful examination of his work, and we had hoped to pay him on this occasion the tribute due to so much learning, candour, and ingenuity. That tribute can now only be offered to his memory; but few names are more honourably connected with our older literature, and especially with Shakespearian criticism, than that of Alexander Dyce. In his second edition of the plays of our great dramatist, the corruptions which infest the earlier folios are to a great extent purged away, and though in some passages what Shakespeare actually wrote still remains an unsolved, if not an insoluble problem, his dramas are vindicated in the main

11. The Works of William Shakespeare. The Text Revised by the Rev. Alexander Dyce. In 9 vols. Second Edition. 1865.

2. The Works of William Shakespeare. Edited by Howard Staunton. With copious Notes, Glossary, Life, etc. In 8 vols. 1869.

3. The Works of William Shakespeare. Edited by William George Clarke, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge; and William Aldis Wright, M.A., Librarian of Trinity College.

Edinburgh Review, July, 1869.

from the reproaches which careless stage-transcribers and blundering player-editors had brought upon them. Mr. Dyce has given in the best form the best results of three great schools of critics and commentators, and he has made many valuable additions to their labours which will be discovered by diligent students on a careful examination of the text. He was a master of all the learning essential to the correction and illustration of Shakespeare, and combined with this wide and exact knowledge what is at least as important to an editor, sound judgment and rare critical sagacity. The text of the new edition illustrates the editor's fine discriminative sense, while the notes and glossary, to which we shall presently refer, bear ample testimony to his varied and accurate learning. In all these respects, the new ⚫ work is a great advance on Mr. Dyce's earlier edition of Shakespeare. In that edition, as Mr. Dyce himself felt. he dealt far too timidly with the text, admitting only a very few even of the best conjectural emendations, and retaining readings that were obviously doubtful and in many instances corrupt. In the last edition he followed the wiser plan of exercising his own judgment freely, and giving in every doubtful passage the best emendation criticism has suggested. In some of the more difficult passages his own knowledge of Shakespeare's language and the literature of the Elizabethan age enabled him to supply a better reading than any previous critic had proposed. The result is the best text of Shakespeare yet produced.

The only recent editions that challenge attention with Mr. Dyce's are those of Mr. Staunton and Messrs. Clarke and Wright, the Cambridge editors. So far as excellence of text is concerned, there is, however, hardly

any comparison between these editions and that of Mr. Dyce. Mr. Staunton avowedly retains a number of doubtful readings, many of the better conjectural emendations being relegated to the notes. But his wide reading in the literature of Shakespeare's time has enabled him to throw some light on doubtful passages and to assist in clearing up some obscure allusions. With regard to the Cambridge text, Mr. Dyce's is so incomparably superior that it is hardly fair to compare them. Considering the circumstances of its publication and the learning and critical accomplishments of the editors, it is a kind of literary problem indeed how it comes to pass that the text of this edition is so extremely defective. It may perhaps be that the business of continually collecting and arranging what may be called the raw materials of criticism has the unhappy effect of confusing and temporarily paralysing the critical faculty. Whatever the cause may be, however, the result is unfortunate, the edition being in many important respects a scholarly and useful one. The prefaces are written. with great care, and the collection and orderly exhibition of the various readings so exhaustive and complete as to render the work almost indispensable to critical students of Shakespeare. But the text in many passages is either disfigured by the blunders of the early folios or weakened by the selection of comparatively worthless emendations. We should like to show this by a detailed examination of various passages, but space forbids. All we can do is to give an illustration or two in passing. In Sir Richard Vernon's spirited description of Prince Hal and his martial comrades setting out on the campaign against Hotspur and Douglas, Mr. Dyce reads, according to the best emendation of a corrupt line, as follows: