‘Injurious Hermia, most ungrateful maid, Have you conspired, have you with these contriv’d To bait me with this foul derision? Is all the counsel that we two have shar’d, The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent, When we have chid the hasty-footed time For parting us—Oh! and is all forgot? All school days’ friendship, childhood innocence? We, Hermia, like two artificial Gods, Created with our needles both one flower, Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion; Both warbling of one song, both in one key; As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds, Had been incorporate. So we grew together, Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, But yet an union in partition. And will you rend our ancient love asunder, And join with men in scorning your poor friend? It is not friendly, ’tis not maidenly: Our sex as well as I may chide you for it, Though I alone do feel the injury.’ In turning to Shakespear to look for this passage, the book opened at the Midsummer Night’s Dream, the title of which half gave us back our old feeling; and in reading this one speech twice over, we have completely forgot all the noise we have heard and the sights we have seen. Poetry and the stage do not agree together. The attempt to reconcile them fails not only of effect, but of decorum. The _ideal_ has no place upon the stage, which is a picture without perspective; every thing there is in the foreground. That which is merely an airy shape, a dream, a passing thought, immediately becomes an unmanageable reality. Where all is left to the imagination, every circumstance has an equal chance of being kept in mind, and tells according to the mixed impression of all that has been suggested. But the imagination cannot sufficiently qualify the impressions of the senses. Any offence given to the eye is not to be got rid of by explanation. Thus Bottom’s head in the play is a fantastic illusion, produced by magic spells: on the stage it is an ass’s head, and nothing more; certainly a very strange costume for a gentleman to appear in. Fancy cannot be represented any more than a simile can be painted; and it is as idle to attempt it as to personate Wall or Moonshine. Fairies are not incredible, but fairies six feet high are so. Monsters are not shocking, if they are seen at a proper distance. When ghosts appear in mid-day, when apparitions stalk along Cheapside, then may the Midsummer Night’s Dream be represented at Covent-Garden or at Drury-Lane; for we hear, that it is to be brought out there also, and that we have to undergo another crucifixion.