be "overdone or come tardy off";
and how he would fain engross them all to himself, to the end of
course that all may succeed, to the honour of the stage and the
pleasure of the spectators. But Bottom's metamorphosis is the most
potent drawer-out of his genius. The sense of his new head-dress stirs
up all the manhood within him, and lifts his character into ludicrous
greatness at once. Hitherto the seeming to be a man has made him
content to be little better than an ass; but no sooner is he conscious
of seeming an ass than he tries his best to be a man; while all his
efforts that way only go to approve the fitness of his present seeming
to his former being.

Schlegel happily remarks, that "the droll wonder of Bottom's
metamorphosis is merely the translation of a metaphor in its literal
sense." The turning of a figure of speech thus into visible form is a
thing only to be thought of or imagined; so that probably no attempt
to paint or represent it to the senses can ever succeed. We can
bear--at least we often have to bear--that a man should seem an ass to
the mind's eye; but that he should seem such to the eye of the body is
rather too much, save as it is done in those fable-pictures which have
long been among the playthings of the nursery. So a child, for
instance, takes great pleasure in fancying the stick he is riding to
be a horse, when he would be frightened out of his wits, were the
stick to quicken and expand into an actual horse. In like manner we
often delight in indulging fancies and giving names, when we should be
shocked were our fancies to harden into facts: we enjoy visions in our
sleep, that would only disgust or terrify us, should we awake and find
them solidified into things. The effect of Bottom's transformation can
hardly be much otherwise, if set forth in visible, animated shape.
Delightful to think of, it is scarce tolerable to look upon:
exquisitely true in idea, it has no truth, or even verisimilitude,
when reduced to fact; so that, however gladly imagination receives it,
sense and understanding revolt at it.

* * * * *

Partly for reasons already stated, and partly for others that I scarce
know how to state, _A Midsummer-Night's Dream_ is a most effectual
poser to criticism. Besides that its very essence is irregularity, so
that it cannot be fairly brought to the test of rules, the play forms
properly a class by itself: literature has nothing else really like
it