out from the Greek tragedies most of the choral songs, which also contribute nothing to the development of the action, but are merely an harmonious echo of the impressions the poet aims at conveying.  In this they altogether mistake the rights of poetry and the nature of the romantic drama, which, for the very reason that it is and ought to be picturesque, requires richer accompaniments and contrasts for its main groups.  In all Art and Poetry, but more especially in the romantic, the Fancy lays claims to be considered as an independent mental power governed according to its own laws.

In an essay on Romeo and Juliet,[24] written a number of years ago, I went through the whole of the scenes in their order and demonstrated the inward necessity of each with reference to the whole; I showed why such a particular circle of characters and relations was placed around the two lovers; I explained the signification of the mirth here and there scattered, and justified the use of the occasional heightening given to the poetical colors.  From all this it seemed to follow unquestionably that, with the exception of a few criticisms, now become unintelligible or foreign to the present taste (imitations of the tone of society of that day), nothing could be taken away, nothing added, nothing otherwise arranged, without mutilating and disfiguring the perfect work.  I would readily undertake to do the same for all the pieces of Shakespeare’s maturer years, but to do this would require a separate book.  Here I am reduced to confine my observations to tracing his great designs with a rapid pencil; but still I must previously be allowed to deliver my sentiments in a general manner on the subject of his most eminent peculiarities.

Shakespeare’s knowledge of mankind has become proverbial:  in this his superiority is so great that he has justly been called the master of the human heart.  A readiness to remark the mind’s fainter and involuntary utterances, and the power to express with certainty the meaning of these signs, as determined by experience and reflection, constitute “the observer of men;” but tacitly to draw from these still further conclusions and to arrange the separate observations according to grounds of probability into a just and valid combination—­this, it may be said, is to know men.  The distinguishing property of the dramatic poet who is great in characterization, is something altogether different here, and which, take it which way we will, either includes in it this readiness and this acuteness, or dispenses with both.  It is the capability of transporting himself so completely into every situation, even the most unusual, that he is enabled, as plenipotentiary of the whole human race, without particular instructions for each separate case, to act and speak in the name of every individual.  It is the power of endowing the creatures of his imagination with such self-existent energy that they afterward act in each conjuncture according to general laws