he coward
heart with feelings all too delicate for use."

Wherefore, if any students of Shakespeare are still troubled with such
criticisms as the one in question, I recommend them to make a thorough
study of the _Book of Job_, and not to leave it till they shall have
mastered the argument of that wonderful and divine poem. They will
there find that, when the good man was prosperous, the Accuser brought
against him the charge, that his serving God so well was from his
being sure of good pay; and that therefore he would presently give
over or slack his service, if the pay should be withheld: they will
also find that, when he was in affliction, his comforters sought to
comfort him with the cruel reproach of having been all the while
secretly a bad man, and with arguments no less cruel, that his
afflictions were sent upon him as a judgment for his secret sins: and,
further, they will find that, when his wife urged him to "curse God
and die," her counsel proceeded upon the principle, that the evils
which fall upon the upright prove the government of the world to be in
the hands of a being who has no respect for the moral character of his
subjects; or, in other words, the sufferings of good men are taken by
her as evidence that goodness is not the law of the Divine
administration.

Now, it was from such teachers as Nature and Job, and not from such as
Job's Accuser and comforters and wife, that Shakespeare learnt his
morality.

SHAKESPEARE'S CHARACTERS.

* * * * *

A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.

A Midsummer-Night's Dream was registered at the Stationers' October 8,
1600, and two quarto editions of it were published in the course of
that year. The play is not known to have been printed again till it
reappeared in the folio of 1623, where the repetition of certain
misprints shows it to have been printed from one of the quarto copies.
In all three of these copies, however, the printing is remarkably
clear and correct for the time, insomuch that modern editors have
little difficulty about the text. Probably none of the Poet's dramas
has reached us in a more satisfactory state.

The play is first heard of in the list given by Francis Meres in his
_Palladis Tamia_, 1598. But it was undoubtedly written several years
before that time; and I am not aware that any editor places the
writing at a later date than 1594. This brings it into the same period
with _King John, King Richard the Seco