NORTH. Then the Double Time is to be called—an Imposture. TALBOYS. Oh, my dear sir—oh, oh! NORTH. A good-natured Juggler, my dear Talboys, has cheated your eyes. You ask him to show you how he did it. He does the trick slowly—and you see. “Now, good Conjuror, _do it slowly, and cheat us_.” “I can’t. I cheat you by doing it quickly. To be cheated, you must _not_ see what I do; but you must _think_ that you see.” When we inspect the Play in our closets, the Juggler does his trick slowly. We sit at the Play, and he does it quick. When you see the trick again done the right way—that is quick—you cannot conceive how it is that you no longer see that which you saw when it was done slowly! Again the impression returns of a magical feat. TALBOYS. I doubt, if we saw Othello perfectly acted, whether all our study would preserve us from the returning imposture. NORTH. I will defy any one most skilful theatrical connoisseur, even at the tenth, or twentieth, or fiftieth Representation, so to have followed the comings-in and the goings-out, as to satisfy himself to demonstration, that interval into which a month or a week or a day can be dropped—_there is none_. TALBOYS. When do you purpose publishing this your “astounding Discovery?” NORTH. Not till after my death. TALBOYS. I shall attend to it. NORTH. In comparing Shakspeare and the Attic Three, we seem to ourselves, but really do not, to exhaust the Criticism of the Drama. Is Mr Sheriff Alison right, when he said that the method of Shakspeare is justified only by the genius of Shakspeare? That less genius needs the art of antiquity? Our own art inclines to a method between the two; and we should have to account for the theatrical success, during a century or more, of such Plays as the Fair Penitent, Jane Shore, &c. TALBOYS. Why, sir, does Tragedy displace often from our contemplation, Comedy? Not when we are contemplating Shakspeare. To me his method, in reading him, appears justified by the omnipotent Art, which, despite refractoriness, binds together the most refractory times, things, persons, events _in Unity_. NORTH. Most true. We feel, in reading, the self-compactness and self-completeness of each Play. Thus in Lear— TALBOYS. In Lear the ethical ground is the Relation of Parent to Child, specifically Father and Daughter. If the treatment of that Relation is full to your satisfaction, that may affect you as a Unity. Full is not exhaustive; but one part of treatment demands another. Thus the violated relation requires for its complement the consecrated relation.