tic
drama." The term _romantic_ is here used in a technical sense; that
is, to distinguish the Shakespearian from the Classic Drama. In this
sense, I cannot quite agree with the great critic that the drama is
_purely_ romantic. Highly romantic it certainly is, in its wide, free,
bold variety of character and incident, and in all the qualities that
enter into the picturesque; yet not romantic in such sort, I think,
but that it is at the same time equally classic; classic, not only in
that the unities of time and place are strictly observed, but as
having the other qualities which naturally go with those laws of the
classic form; in its severe beauty and majestic simplicity, its
interfusion of the lyrical and the ethical, and in the mellow
atmosphere of serenity and composure which envelopes it: as if on
purpose to show the Poet's mastery not only of both the Classic and
Romantic Drama, but of the common Nature out of which both of them
grew. This union of both kinds in one without hindrance to the
distinctive qualities of either,--this it is, I think, that chiefly
distinguishes _The Tempest_ from the Poet's other dramas. Some have
thought that in this play Shakespeare specially undertook to silence
the pedantic cavillers of his time by showing that he could keep to
the rules of the Greek stage, if he chose to do so, without being any
the less himself. But it seems more likely that he was here drawn into
such a course by the leadings of his own wise spirit than by the
cavils of contemporary critics; the form appearing too cognate with
the matter to have been dictated by any thing external to the work
itself.

There are some points that naturally suggest a comparison between
_The Tempest_ and _A Midsummer-Night's Dream_. In both the Poet has
with equal or nearly equal success carried Nature, as it were, beyond
herself, and peopled a purely ideal region with the attributes of life
and reality; so that the characters touch us like substantive,
personal beings, as if he had but described, not created them. But,
beyond this, the resemblance ceases: indeed no two of his plays differ
more widely in all other respects.

_The Tempest_ presents a combination of elements apparently so
incongruous that we cannot but marvel how they were brought together;
yet they blend so sweetly, and co-operate so smoothly, that we at once
feel at home with them, and see nothing to hinder their union in the
world of which we are a part. For in th