Field proposed 'A lion's fell'—that is, a lion's skin-but this does not strike us as characteristic either of Snug the joiner or of Shakespeare. Bottom had ordered (Act. III. sc. 1) that Snug should tell the ladies he was no lion, and that he should name his name, and tell them plainly he was Snug the joiner. Accordingly, he fulfilled the injunction to the letter when he said:

"Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am

No lion fell, nor else no lion's dam.'

He was neither a lion nor a lioness. 'Fell' is exactly the epithet which we should expect the poet to apply to the lion in this passage.

8 Snuff. An equivocation. Snuff signifies both the cinder of a candle and hasty anger.-JOHNSON.

9 Pyr. Sweet moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;

I thank thee, moon, for shining now so bright:

For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering streams,

I trust to taste of truest Thisby's sight.

In the third line of this stanza, the old copies repeat the word beams as the rhyme to the same word at the close of the first line. In the second folio, streams was substituted. Mr Charles Knight suggested gleams, which expressed the meaning of the passage, and continued the burlesque alliterative style. But gleams is not a word of the old poets, and Shakespeare does not once use it; whereas 'streams,' in the sense here employed (pouring forth rays), is a common expression.

10 Bergomask dance. A dance after the manner of the peasants of Bergomasco, in Italy.

11 Every fairy take his gait;

And each several chamber bless,

Through this palace with sweet peace :
Ever shall in safety rest,

And the owner of it blest.

In the last two lines, the nominative case must be understood though not expressed, unless we assume that the passage has been corrupted. Pope made it grammatically correct by reading—

'Ever shall it safely rest.'

Mr Staunton, at the suggestion of Mr Singer and an anonymous correspondent, transposes the last two lines

'And the owner of it blest,

Ever shall in safety rest.'

'But in that case,' says Mr Dyce, 'two printers, at least, must have oddly

enough made the same mistake, since the two quarto editions of the play (1600) were printed from two different manuscripts.' Is this certain? One edition seems merely the other slightly corrected. Some palpable omissions of words and misprints are the same in both.

12 Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue; that is, if the actors should be dismissed without hisses.

TWELFTH NIGHT.

TH

INTRODUCTION TO TWELFTH NIGHT.

THE combination of romantic fancy and rich broad humour in this drama, render it one of the most popular and delightful of Shakespeare's comedies. It overflows with poetry and mirth. The more exquisite of the sentimental passages—as the Duke's apostrophe to music, and Viola's confession of her love-have passed into the memories of all poetical readers, while the eccentricities and jovialities of Malvolio, Sir Toby, and Sir Andrew, with the running comments of the clown, are as original and nearly as provocative of laughter as the humours of Falstaff and the Prince, or the extravagances of Don Quixote. No stage incident was ever better contrived or more effective than Maria's plot against Malvolio, with all its accessories and 'trick of singularity—the forged letter, smiles, cross-garters, yellow stockings, soliloquy, and imputed madness. There is, no doubt, improbability in some of the incidents. The loves of Viola and the Duke 'o'erstep the modesty of nature'—particularly on the part of Viola, who resolves to win the Duke before she had even seen him; but the progress of their passion is described with so much truth and fervour and beauty of language as to overpower criticism. The circumstances attending the marriage of Olivia and the mistaken identity of Sebastian, also demand the licence accorded to romantic fiction. They want the air of reality; but poetical justice, as Hazlitt has remarked, 'is done in the uneasiness which Olivia suffers on account of her mistaken attachment to Cesario, as her insensibility to the violence of the Duke's passion is atoned for by the discovery of Viola's concealed love of him.' The ideal predominates throughout the whole play.

The dramatic art evinced in Twelfth Night, and its general excellence, led to a belief that it was one of the poet's latest