For instance, the attempt to condense into marble such light, evanescent, quaint creations as those in “The Midsummer’s Night’s Dream” is better avoided; we feel that a marble fairy must be a heavy absurdity. Oberon and Titania might perhaps float along in a bas-relief; but we cannot put away the thought that they have reality without substantiality, and we do not like to see them, or Ariel, or Caliban fixed in the definite forms of sculpture. There are, however, a few of Shakspeare’s characters which appear to me beautifully adapted for statuesque treatment: Perdita holding her flowers; Miranda lingering on the shore; might well replace the innumerable “Floras” and “Nymphs preparing to bathe,” which people the _atéliers_ of our sculptors. Cordelia has something of marble quietude about her; and Hermione is a statue ready made. And, by the way, it is observable that Shakspeare represents Hermione as a _coloured_ statue. Paulina will not allow it to be touched, because “the colour is not yet dry.” Again,— “Would you not deem those veins Did verily bear blood? “The very life seems warm upon her lips, The fixture of her eye hath motion in’t, And we are mocked by Art! The ruddiness upon her lip is wet, “You’ll mar it if you kiss it, stain your own With oily painting.” I think it possible to model small ornamental statuettes and groups from some few of the scenes in Shakspeare’s plays; but this is quite different from life-size figures of Hamlet, Othello, Shylock, Macbeth, which must either have the look of real individual portraiture, or become mere idealisations of certain qualities; and Shakspeare’s creations are neither the one nor the other. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHARACTERS FROM SPENSER. Spenser is so essentially a picturesque poet, he depends for his rich effects so much on the combination of colour and imagery, and multiplied accessories, that one feels—at least _I_ feel, on laying down a volume of the “Fairie Queene” dazzled as if I had been walking in a gallery of pictures. His “Masque of Cupid,” for instance, although a procession of poetical creations, could not be transferred to a bas-relief without completely losing its Spenserian character—its wondrous glow of colour. Thus Cupid “uprears himself exulting from the back of the ravenous lion;” removes the bandage from his eyes, that he may look round on his victims; “shakes the darts which his right hand doth strain full dreadfully,” and “claps on high his coloured wings twain.” This certainly is not the Greek Cupid, nor the Cupid of sculpture; it is the Spenserian Cupid. So of his Una, so of his Britomart, and the Red Cross Knight and Sir Guyon: one might make elegant _statuesque_ impersonations of the allegories they involve, as of Truth, Chastity, Faith, Temperance; but then they would lose immediately their Spenserian character and sentiment, and must become something altogether different. [Illustration] THE LADY. COMUS.