Give us, sir, a commentary on the Revelations of the Sleeping Spectre. NORTH. I dare not. Let's be cheerful. I ask this--when you see and hear Kemble-Macbeth--and Siddons-Macbeth--whom do you believe that you see and hear? I affirm that you at one and the same instant--(or at the most in two immediately successive instants--yet I believe in one and the same instant)--_know_ that you see and hear Kemble--or if that accomplished gentleman and admirable actor--Macready be performing the part--then Macready;--and yet _believe_ that you see and hear Lord Macbeth. I aver that you entertain a mixt--confused--self-contradictory state of mind--that two elements of thought which cannot co-subsist do co-subsist. TALBOYS. _De jure_ they cannot--DE FACTO they do. NORTH. Just so. TALBOYS. They co-subsist fighting, and yet harmonising--there is half-belief--semi-illusion. NORTH. I claim the acknowledgment of such a state--which any one who chooses may better describe, but which shall come to that effect--for the lowest substratum of all science and criticism concerning POESY. Will anybody grant me this, then I will reason with him about Poesy, for we begin with something in common. Will anybody deny me this, then I will not argue with him about Poesy, for we set out with nothing in common. BULLER. We grant you all you ask--we are all agreed--"our unanimity is wonderful." NORTH. Leave out the great Brother and Sister, and take the Personated alone. I _know_ that Othello and Desdemona never existed--that an Italian Novelist began, and an English Dramatist ended them--and there they are. But do I not _believe_ in their existence, "their loves and woes?" Yes I do _believe_ in their existence, in their loves and woes--and I hate Iago accordingly with a vicious, unchristian, personal, active, malignant hatred. TALBOYS. Dr Johnson's celebrated expression, "all the belief that Poetry claims"---- BULLER. Celebrated! Where is it? TALBOYS. Preface to Shakspeare--is idle, and frivolous, and false? NORTH. It is. He belies his own experience. He cannot make up his mind to admit the _irrational thought_ of belief which you at once reject and accept. But exactly the half acceptance, and the half rejection, separates poetry from--prose. TALBOYS. That is, sir, the poetical from the prosaic. NORTH. Just so. It is the life and soul of all poetry--the lusus--the make-believe--the glamour and the gramarye. I do not know--gentlemen--I wish to be told, whether I am now throwing away words upon the setting up of a pyramid which was built by Cheops, and is only here and there crumbling a little, or whether the world requires that the position shall be formally argued and acknowledged. Johnson, as you reminded me, Talboys, did not admit it. TALBOYS.