Does any man by possibility ask for a scheme and an exposition, by which it shall be made luminous to the smallest capacity, _how_ we are able distinctly all along to know, and bear in mind, that the preceding transactions are accomplished in a day, and at the same time and therewithal, distinctly all along to know and bear in mind that the same transactions proceeding before our eyes take about three months to accomplish? Then, I am obliged—like the musicians, when they are told that, if they have any music that may not be heard, Othello desires them to play it—to make answer, “Sir, we have none such.” It is to ask that a deception shall be not only seemingly but really a truth! Jedediah Buxton, and Blair the Chronologist, would, “sitting at _this_ play,” have broken their hearts. You need not. If you ask me—which judiciously you may—what or how much did the Swan of Avon intend and know of all this astonishing legerdemain, when he sang thus astonishingly? Was he the juggler juggled by aërial spirits—as Puck and Ariel? I put my finger to my lip, and nod on him to do the same; and if I am asked, “Shall a modern artificer of the Drama, having the same pressure from within and from without, adopt this resource of evasion?” I can answer, with great confidence, “He had better look before he leap.” If any spectator, upon the mere persuasion and power of the Representation, ends with believing that the seed sown and the harvest reaped are of one day, I believe that he may yet have the belief of extended time at Cyprus. I should say by _carrying the one day with him on forwards from day to day_! Or if you wish this more intelligibly said, that he shall continually _forget_ the past notices. Once for all, he shall _forget_ that the _first suggestion was on the day after the arrival_. TALBOYS. Inquire, sir, what intelligent auditors, who have not gone into the study, have thought; for that, after all, is the only testimony that means anything. NORTH. Well, Talboys, suppose that one of them should actually say, “Why, upon my word, if I am to tell the truth, I did take note that Iago began ‘abusing Othello’s ear’ the day after the arrival. I did, in the course of the Play, gather up an impression that some good space of time was passing at Cyprus—and I did, when the murder came, put it down upon the same day with the sowing of the suspicion, and I was not aware of the contradiction. In short, now that you put me upon it, I see that I did that which thousands of us do in thousands of subjects—keep in different corners of the brain two beliefs—of which, if they had come upon the same ground, the one must have annihilated the other. But I did not at the time bring the data together. _I suppose that I had something else to think of._” TALBOYS. Assume, sir, for simplicity’s sake, that Shakspeare knew what he was doing.