What has been said above as to the inventions and fables, which serve as a decorative background to certain of the comedies of love, is also applicable to these romantic and idyllic plays, in which the decorative background takes the first place and becomes the principal theme. For the rest, it goes without saying that the plots or decorations referred to are also to be included (as has been done) in the present argument, because it turns upon the different motives of Shakespeare's poetry, not upon the works that are materially distinct, where several motives usually meet and are sometimes so very loosely connected, as to form no more intimate a unity than the rather capricious one, of general tone. A sense of _unreality_ is therefore diffused upon the romantic plays, not of falsity, but just of unreality, such as we experience in the play of fancy, when we recount a fairy tale, well aware that it is a fairy tale, yet greatly enjoying the passage to and fro before us of the prince, the beauty, the ogre and the fairy. A proof of this is to be found in the summary treatment of the characters and the turning-points or crises of the action, the easy pardoning and making of peace, and the bizarre expedients adopted to bring the intrigue to an end. Instances of the second sort are the adventure of the lion in the Forest of Arden the reconciliation of the two enemy brothers in _As You Like It,_ the dream of Posthumus in _Cymbeline,_ the advent of the bear and the ship-wreck in the _Winter's Tale,_ and the like. And as regards summary treatment, where could we find a more off-hand Iago than the Hyacinth of _Cymbeline,_ guilty of the most audacious and perverse betrayals, as though by chance, yet later on, when he, confesses his sins, he is forgiven and starts again, so far as we can see, a gentleman and perfect knight. We do not speak of Posthumus, of Cloten, of King Cymbeline and of so many personages in this and others of the romantic plays. The wicked turn out to be all the more harmless, the greater their wickedness; the good are good _nunc et semper,_ without intermission, exactly as introduced at the beginning of the play; the most desperate situations, the most terrible passes, are speedily and completely overcome, or one foresees that they will be overcome. Here romance has no intention whatever of ending unhappily or in pensive sadness; it wishes to stimulate the imagination, but at the same time to keep it agile and happy and to leave it contented. Indeed, in those rare cases when we do meet with painful or terrible motives, which are not easily overcome in the course of the imaginative development of the work, we are sensible of being slightly jarred, and this is perhaps the reason for that "displeasure," which such fine judges as Coleridge note in _Measure for Measure,_ so rich, nevertheless, in splendid passages, worthy of Shakespeare. Not only does this comedy verge upon tragedy, but here and there it becomes