of reasoning that since the delineations of women in Shakespeare were admitted to be first-rate, it should follow, at least there was a fair presumption, that no means or aid had been wanting to their production, and that consequently we ought, in the absence of distinct evidence, to assume that personal intimacy as well as solitary imagination had been concerned in their production. And we meant to cite the questions about Octavia,' which Lord Byron, who thought he had the means of knowing, declared to be "women all over."

But all doubt was removed and all conjecture set to rest by the coming in of an ably-dressed friend from the external world, who mentioned that the language of Shakespeare's women was essentially female language; that there were certain points and peculiarities in the English of cultivated English women, which made it a language. of itself, which must be heard familiarly in order to be known. And he added, "Except a greater use of words of Latin derivation, as was natural in an age when ladies received a learned education, a few words not now proper, a few conceits that were the fashion of the time, and there is the very same English in the women's speeches in Shakespeare." He quoted

"Think not I love him, though I ask for him;

'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well;

But what care I for words? yet words do well
When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.

It is a pretty youth: not very pretty:

But, sure, he 's proud, and yet his pride becomes him:
He'll make a proper man: the best thing in him

Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue

Did make offence his eye did heal it up.

He is not very tall; yet for his years he 's tall;

His leg is but so so; and yet 'tis well:

There was a pretty redness in his lip,

A little riper and more lusty red

Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the difference
Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.

There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him

In parcels as I did, would have gone near
To fall in love with him: but, for my part,
I love him not nor hate him not; and yet

I have more cause to hate him than to love him:
For what had he to do to chide at me?

He said mine eyes were black and my hair black;
And, now I am remember'd, scorn'd at me:

I marvel why I answer'd not again:

But that's all one; ""*

and the passage of Perdita's cited before about the daffodils that

"take

The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes

Or Cytherea's breath;

and said that these were conclusive. But we have not, ourselves, heard young ladies converse in that manner.

Perhaps it is in his power of delineating women, that Shakespeare contrasts most strikingly with the greatest master of the art of dialogue in antiquity—we mean Plato. It will, no doubt, be said that the delineation of women did not fall within Plato's plan; that men's life was in that age so separate and predominant that it could be delineated by itself and apart; and no doubt these remarks are very true. But what led Plato to form that plan? What led him to select that peculiar argumentative aspect of life, in which the masculine element is in so high a degree superior? We believe that he did it because he felt that he could paint that kind of scene much better than he could paint any other. If a person will consider the sort of conversation that was held in the cool summer morning, when Socrates was knocked up early to talk definitions and philosophy with Protagoras, he will feel, not only that women would fancy such dialogues to be certainly stupid, and very possibly to be without meaning, but also that the side of character which is there pre

*As You Like It, III. v.

women.

sented is one from which not only the feminine but even the epicene element is nearly, if not perfectly, excluded. It is the intellect surveying and delineating intellectual characteristics. We have a dialogue of thinking faculties; the character of every man is delineated by showing us, not his mode of action or feeling, but his mode of thinking, alone and by itself. The pure mind, purged of all passion and affection, strives to view and describe others in like manner; and the singularity is, that the likenesses so taken are so good, that the accurate copying of the merely intellectual effects and indications of character gives so true and so firm an impression of the whole character, that a daguerreotype of the mind should almost seem to be a delineation of the life. But though in the hand of a consummate artist, such a way of representation may in some sense succeed in the case of men, it would certainly seem sure to fail in the case of The mere intellect of a woman is a mere nothing. It originates nothing, it transmits nothing, it retains nothing; it has little life of its own, and therefore it can hardly be expected to attain any vigour. Of the lofty Platonic world of the ideas, which the soul in the old doctrine was to arrive at by pure and continuous reasoning, women were never expected to know anything. Plato (though Mr. Grote denies that he was a practical man) was much too practical for that; he reserved his teaching for people whose belief was regulated and induced in some measure by abstract investigations; who had an interest in the pure and (as it were) geometrical truth itself; who had an intellectual character (apart from and accessory to their other character) capable of being viewed as a large and substantial existence, Shakespeare's being, like a woman's, worked as a whole. He was capable of intellectual abstractedness, but commonly he was touched with the sense of earth. One thinks of him as firmly set on our coarse world of common clay, but from it he could paint the moving essence of thoughtful feeling-which is the best refinement of the best women.

Imogen or Juliet would have thought little of the conversation of Gorgias.

On few subjects has more nonsense been written than on the learning of Shakespeare. In former times, the established tenet was, that he was acquainted with the entire range of the Greek and Latin classics, and familiarly resorted to Sophocles and Eschylus as guides and models. This creed reposed not so much on any painful or elaborate criticism of Shakespeare's plays, as on one of the a priori assumptions permitted to the indolence of the wise old world. It was then considered clear, by all critics, that no one could write good English who could not also write bad Latin. Questioning scepticism has rejected this axiom, and refuted with contemptuous facility the slight attempt which had been made to verify this case of it from the evidence of the plays themselves. But the new school, not content with showing that Shakespeare was no formed or elaborate scholar, propounded the idea that he was quite ignorant, just as Mr. Croker "demonstrates" that Napoleon Bonaparte could scarcely write or read. The answer is, that Shakespeare wrote his plays, and that those plays show not only a very powerful, but also a very cultivated mind. A hard student Shakespeare was not, yet he was a happy and pleased reader of interesting books. He was a natural reader; when a book was dull he put it down, when it looked fascinating he took it up, and the consequence is, that he remembered and mastered what he read. Lively books, read with lively interest, leave strong and living recollections; the instructors, no doubt, say that they ought not to do so, and inculcate the necessity of dry reading. Yet the good sense of a busy public has practically discovered that what is read easily is recollected easily, and what is read with difficulty is remembered with more. It is certain that Shakespeare read the novels of his time, for he has founded on them the stories of his plays; he read Plutarch, for his words still live in the dialogue of the proud Roman" plays; and it is remarkable that Mon

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taigne is the only philosopher that Shakespeare can be proved to have read, because he deals more than any other philosopher with the first impressions of things which exist. On the other hand, it may be doubted if Shakespeare would have perused his commentators. Certainly, he would have never read a page of this review, and we go so far as to doubt whether he would have been pleased with the admirable discourses of M. Guizot, which we ourselves, though ardent admirers of his style and ideas, still find it a little difficult to read; and what would he have thought of the following speculations of an anonymous individual, whose notes have been recently published in a fine octavo by Mr. Collier, and, according to the periodical essayists, "contribute valuable suggestions to the illustration of the immortal bard"?

"THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

"ACT I. SCENE I.

"P. 92. The reading of the subsequent line has hitherto been "Tis true; for you are over boots in love';

but the manuscript corrector of the Folio, 1632, has changed it to "Tis true; but you are over boots in love,'

which seems more consistent with the course of the dialogue; for Proteus, remarking that Leander had been more than over shoes in love,' with Hero, Valentine answers, that Proteus was even more deeply in love than Leander. Proteus observes of the fable of Hero and Leander

'That's a deep story of a deeper love,

For he was more than over shoes in love.'

Valentine retorts

"'Tis true; but you are over boots in love.' For instead of but was perhaps caught by the compositor from the preceding line."

It is difficult to fancy Shakespeare perusing a volume of such annotations, though we allow that we admire