Perhaps every one of the examples I adduce will be found open to dispute. This is a kind in which direct proof can have no share; nor should I have dared thus to combine them in argument, but for the ninth stanza of those quoted above, to which I beg my readers to revert. Its _imaginary work_ means--work hinted at, and then left to the imagination of the reader. Of course, in dramatic representation, such work must exist on a great scale; but the minute particularization of the “conceit deceitful” in the rest of the stanza, will surely justify us in thinking it possible that Shakspere intended many, if not all, of the _little_ fitnesses which a careful reader discovers in his plays. That such are not oftener discovered comes from this: that, like life itself, he so blends into vital beauty, that there are no salient points. To use a homely simile: he is not like the barn-door fowl, that always runs out cackling when she has laid an egg; and often when she has not. In the tone of an ordinary drama, you may know when something is coming; and the tone itself declares--_I have done it_. But Shakspere will not spoil his art to show his art. It is there, and does its part: that is enough. If you can discover it, good and well; if not, pass on, and take what you can find. He can afford not to be fathomed for every little pearl that lies at the bottom of his ocean. If I succeed in showing that such art may exist where it is not readily discovered, this may give some additional probability to its existence in places where it is harder to isolate and define. To produce a few instances, then: In “Much Ado about Nothing,” seeing the very nature of the play is expressed in its name, is it not likely that Shakspere named the two constables, Dogberry (_a poisonous berry_) and Verjuice (_the juice of crab-apples_); those names having absolutely nothing to do with the stupid innocuousness of their characters, and so corresponding to their way of turning things upside down, and saying the very opposite of what they mean? In the same play we find Margaret objecting to her mistress’s wearing a certain rebato (_a large plaited ruff_), on the morning of her wedding: may not this be intended to relate to the fact that Margaret had dressed in her mistress’s clothes the night before? She might have rumpled or soiled it, and so feared discovery. In “King Henry IV.,” Part I., we find, in the last scene, that the Prince kills Hotspur. This is not recorded in history: the conqueror of Percy is unknown. Had it been a fact, history would certainly have recorded it; and the silence of history in regard to a deed of such mark, is equivalent to its contradiction. But Shakspere requires, for his play’s sake, to identify the slayer of Hotspur with his rival the Prince. Yet Shakspere will not contradict history, even in its silence. What is he to do? He will account for history _not knowing_ the fact.--Falstaff claiming the honour, the Prince says to him: