This may to some appear extravagant praise, but for its justice we confidentially appeal to the record. The plays which have most severely tried the sagacity of Shakspeare's critics, are Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, and Othello. We do not hesitate to say that Mr. Hudson's analysis and representation of these are the most thorough, accurate, and comprehensive which exist at present either in English or German. Compare him or these tragedies with Goethe, with Schlegel, with Coleridge, with Hazlitt, with Ulrici, and it will be found that he excels them all in completeness. It is needless to add that he is able to excel them only by coming after them; and that it is by diligently digesting all the positive results of Shaksperian criticism that he has been enabled to advance the science. He has grasped the principles which Schlegel and Coleridge established, and applied them to the discovery of new truths. By the most patient and toilsome analysis he has fully brought out many things which they simply hinted, and distinctly set forth conclusions which lay dormant in their premises. And in the analysis of individual character, meaning by that the resolving each Shaksperian personage into its original elements, and indicating the degree of general truth it covers, our countryman has hardly a rival. Few even of Shakspeare's diligent readers are aware of the vast stores of thought and knowledge implied in Shakspeare's characters, because the fact is so commonly stated in general terms. Mr. Hudson proves that the characters are classes intensely individualized, by showing how large is the number of persons each character represents, or of whom it is the ideal. He thus indicates the extent of Shakspeare's range over the whole field of humanity, and the degree of his success in _classifying_ mankind. No one, therefore, can read Mr. Hudson's interpretative criticisms without new wonder at the amazing reach and depth of Shakspeare's genius.