is the cry of any author nowadays who aims at writing a true Comedy. Mr. IRVING marks clearly enough all the passages usually omitted in representation, which of themselves would make a small volume, but we are not shown the arrangement of scenes necessitated by the exigences of the stage, or rather by the taste of the audience, and so in this respect the plays remain pretty much as their author left them. Some stage-directions have been introduced, but as Mr. FRANK MARSHALL denies that this is in any sense an "acting edition"--while Mr. IRVING in his preface rather seems to imply that in some sense it is so,--I should be inclined to describe the work as "a contribution in aid of an acting edition," and I am delighted to add, a most valuable contribution it is, at least so far. _Ex uno disce omnes_, and if the other volumes are only on a par with this first instalment, IRVING and MARSHALL'S--it wouldn't do to put MARSHALL first in the Firm, because it would at once suggest, "and SNELGROVE" to follow--or this HENRY and FRANK'S edition of SHAKSPEARE will be one of the most perfect and the most serviceable to the ordinary reader that has as yet been given to the public. In order to illustrate the Messrs. BLACKIE'S judicious liberality, Mr. MARSHALL tells us that, with the view of making the work more complete by the introduction of certain explanations, "they (Messrs. BLACKIE) entirely recast all the notes to _Richard the Second_, though they (the notes, not Messrs. BLACKIE) had been already stereotyped." Oh, that Theatrical Managers would be as wise in their generations as were even these poor publishers, and when they see that a piece, SHAKSPEARE'S or anybody else's, is in an unsatisfactory state for representation, at once "recast it entirely," in spite of all the old "stereotyped" tie-wig objections. Mr. IRVING in his preface makes a sort of apology for the luxurious extravagance of modern stage decoration. There is no necessity for this. The Stage reflects the fashion of the day, and that fashion is Materialism. Mr. MARSHALL'S critical remarks on _The Comedy of Errors_, _Love's Labour's Lost_, _Romeo and Juliet_, and _Henry the Sixth_, Part I., are admirable, difficult subjects being most delicately handled. He has no note on the appearance of an "Abbess," and on a scene "in front of a Priory," in the first of these plays, of which the action takes place about 300 B.C.; but I suppose that, though seldom risking anything in a case of importance, he on this occasion consulted the DYCE, and concluded that there was some "a priory" argument in favour of the existence of Abbesses three hundred years before they were invented. A genius like SHAKSPEARE is above time and place. Mr. MARSHALL is of opinion (in a footnote, and I think he has here put his foot in it) that SHAKSPEARE never descended to sycophancy for the sake of pleasing his royal patroness. I shall be curious to see what he has to say on this