iently qualify the actual impressions of the
senses. Any offence given to the eye is not to be got rid of by
explanation. Thus Bottom's head in the play is a fantastic illusion,
produced by magic spells: on the stage it is an ass's head, and nothing
more; certainly a very strange costume for a gentleman to appear in. Fancy
cannot be embodied any more than a simile can be painted; and it is as
idle to attempt it as to personate _Wall_ or _Moonshine_. Fairies are not
incredible, but fairies six feet high are so. Monsters are not shocking,
if they are seen at a proper distance. When ghosts appear at mid-day, when
apparitions stalk along Cheapside, then may the MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM be
represented without injury at Covent-garden or at Drury-lane. The boards
of a theatre and the regions of fancy are not the same thing.

FALSTAFF

If Shakspeare's fondness for the ludicrous sometimes led to faults in his
tragedies (which was not often the case) he has made us amends by the
character of Falstaff. This is perhaps the most substantial comic
character that ever was invented. Sir John carries a most portly presence
in the mind's eye; and in him, not to speak it profanely, "we behold the
fulness of the spirit of wit and humour bodily." We are as well acquainted
with his person as his mind, and his jokes come upon us with double force
and relish from the quantity of flesh through which they make their way,
as he shakes his fat sides with laughter, or "lards the lean earth as he
walks along." Other comic characters seem, if we approach and handle them,
to resolve themselves into air, "into thin air;" but this is embodied and
palpable to the grossest apprehension: it lies "three fingers deep upon
the ribs," it plays about the lungs and the diaphragm with all the force
of animal enjoyment. His body is like a good estate to his mind, from
which he receives rents and revenues of profit and pleasure in kind,
according to its extent, and the richness of the soil. Wit is often a
meagre substitute for pleasurable sensation; an effusion of spleen and
petty spite at the comforts of others, from feeling none in itself.
Falstaff's wit is an emanation of a fine constitution; an exuberance of
good-humour and good-nature; an overflowing of his love of laughter and
good-fellowship; a giving vent to his heart's ease, and over-contentment
with himself and others. He would not be in character, if he were not so
fat as he is; for there is the greates