heir lovers, of the
amateur players and their woodland rehearsal, and of the fairy
bickerings and overreaching; and the carrying of them severally to a
point where they all meet and blend in lyrical respondence; all this
is done in the same freedom from the laws that govern the drama of
character and life. Each group of persons is made to parody itself
into concert with the others; while the frequent intershootings of
fairy influence lift the whole into the softest regions of fancy. At
last the Interlude comes in as an amusing burlesque on all that has
gone before; as in our troubled dreams we sometimes end with a dream
that we have been dreaming, and our perturbations sink to rest in the
sweet assurance that they were but the phantoms and unrealities of a
busy sleep.

* * * * *

Though, as I have already implied, the characterization is here quite
secondary and subordinate, yet the play probably has as much of
character as were compatible with so much of poetry. Theseus has been
well described as a classic personage with romantic features and
expression. The name is Greek, but the nature and spirit are
essentially Gothic. Nor does the abundance of classical allusion and
imagery in the story call for any qualification here; because
whatsoever is taken is thoroughly steeped in the efficacy of the
taker. This sort of anachronism, common to all modern writers before
and during the age of Shakespeare, seems to have arisen in part from a
comparative dearth of classical learning, which left men to
contemplate the heroes of antiquity under the forms into which their
own mind and manners had been cast. Thus their delineations became
informed with the genius of romance; the condensed grace of ancient
character giving way to the enlargement of chivalrous magnanimity and
honour, with its "high-erected thoughts seated in the heart of
courtesy." Such in Shakespeare's case appears to have been the no less
beautiful than natural result of the small learning, so often smiled
and sometimes barked at, by those more skilled in the ancient
languages than in the mother-tongue of nature.

* * * * *

In the two pairs of lovers there are hardly any lines deep and firm
enough to be rightly called characteristic. Their doings, even more
than those of the other human persons, are marked by the dream-like
freakishness and whimsicality which distinguish the piece. Perhaps the
two l