SWINBURNE, _A Reminiscence_. * * * * * With increase of reading we have fallen into a fireside, dilettante culture of ideas as an intellectual pleasure. Amos and Isaiah do not deal in ideas. Their strength lies in love and hatred, in the keenness and depth of their division between right and wrong. They repeat the work of God the Creator: chaotic sameness becomes diverse; the heavenly firmament mounts on high; there is Light and there is Darkness. SHAKESPEARE ‘Glory to thee in the highest, thou confidant of our Creator!’ (Landor, _Imaginary Conversations_, Delille and Landor). * * * * * 2 _Henry VI._ iii. 3.—The lines beginning with the one which follows are not in the old play and are Shakespeare’s own: ‘O thou eternal Mover of the heavens,’ etc. Johnson’s note is: ‘This is one of the scenes which have been applauded by the criticks, and which will continue to be admired when prejudices shall cease, and bigotry give way to impartial examination. These are beauties that rise out of nature and of truth; the superficial reader cannot miss them, the profound can image nothing beyond them.’ We talk idly of Johnson’s pompous redundance. His sentences are balanced, and it is therefore supposed that the second part repeats the first, but the truth is that each part contains a new thought. It was his manner to throw successive ideas into this form. Those who are acquainted with his history and his awful mental struggles will find infinite pathos in this restrained comment. * * * * * _Midsummer Night’s Dream_.—Shakespeare’s overlooking quality, as that of a god surveying human affairs, is shown in this play: ‘When they next wake, all this derision Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision.’ . . . ‘Her dotage now I do begin to pity.’ . . . ‘And think no more of this night’s accidents But as the fierce vexation of a dream.’ . . . All this night’s storm from a drop of magic juice! Oberon has been watching Titania’s courtship of Bottom. She sleeps, and he touches her eyes with Dian’s bud: ‘Now, my Titania, wake you, my sweet queen’ * * * * * _Romeo and Juliet_.—The love of Juliet is a thing altogether by itself, not to be classed, never anticipated by any other author, and not imitable. It is sensuous. Look at her soliloquy, ‘Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,’ etc., and yet it is woven through and through with immortal threads of fidelity and contempt of death: ‘O! bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, From off the battlements of yonder tower. . . . Or bid me go into a new-made grave.’