siderations, must ever be one of the most gracious and prized traditions of public life.

It is not necessary for us to pursue any farther the criticism of political parties since the death of Lord Granville. Our views have been incidentally indicated in the course of these pages. One thought must have been constantly in the minds of those of our readers who have followed with attention the opinions expressed. There has never been any time in the history of politics during the past century when the policy and practice of the Liberals and their Radical allies have not been the cause of serious anxiety to all who have held dear the prestige of Great Britain abroad and its peace and unity at home. By the fortunate composition of our political parties and the generally high independence of our public men there has never been wanting a number of statesmen sufficiently firm and independent to be a check upon the extremists of their party. For years past, under the rule of Lord Salisbury and Mr Balfour, the country has had the benefit of such an alliance between Conservatives and moderate men of ancient Whig or more modern Liberal tendencies. That such an alliance is always possible and even probable is one of the strongest checks upon desperate domestic legislation and dangerous foreign policy, and one of the surest safeguards of the honour and interests of the country.

Art. II.-SHAKESPEARE'S 'ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.' COLERIDGE'S one page of general criticism on 'Antony and Cleopatra' contains some notable remarks.

'Of all Shakespeare's historical plays' (he writes), ""Antony and Cleopatra" is by far the most wonderful. There is not one in which he has followed history so minutely, and yet there are few in which he impresses the notion of angelic strength so much-perhaps none in which he impresses it more strongly. This is greatly owing to the manner in which the fiery force is sustained throughout.'

In a later sentence he refers to the play as 'this astonishing drama.' In another he describes the style: 'feliciter audax is the motto for its style comparatively with that of Shakespeare's other works.' And he translates this motto in the phrase 'happy valiancy of style.'

Coleridge's assertion that in 'Antony and Cleopatra Shakespeare followed history more minutely than in any other play might well be disputed; and his statement about the style of this drama requires some qualification in view of the results of later criticism as to the order of Shakespeare's works. The style is less individual than he imagined. On the whole it is the style of all the dramas subsequent to 'Macbeth,' though in 'Antony and Cleopatra,' which probably followed that tragedy, the development of this style is not yet quite complete. And we must add that this style has certain marked defects, unmentioned by Coleridge, as well as the quality which he points out in it. But it is true that here that quality is almost continuously present; and in the phrase by which he describes it, as in his other phrases, he has signalised once for all some of the most salient features of the drama.

It is curious to notice, for example, alike in books and in conversation, how often the first epithets used in reference to 'Antony and Cleopatra' are 'wonderful' and astonishing.' And the main source of the feeling thus expressed seems to be the angelic strength' or 'fiery force' of which Coleridge wrote. The first of these two phrases is, I think, the more entirely happy. Except perhaps towards the close, one is not so conscious of fiery

force as in certain other tragedies; but one is astonished at the apparent ease with which extraordinary effects are produced, the ease, if I may paraphrase Coleridge, of an angel moving with a wave of the hand that heavy matter which men find so intractable. We feel this sovereign ease in contemplating Shakespeare's picture of the world— a vast canvas crowded with figures, glowing with colour and a superb animation, reminding one spectator of Paul Veronese and another of Rubens. We feel it again when we observe (as we can even without referring to Plutarch) the nature of the material; how bulky it was, and, in some respects, how undramatic; and how the artist, though he could not treat history like legend or fiction, seems to push whole masses aside, and to shift and refashion the remainder, almost with the air of an architect playing with a child's bricks.

Something similar is felt even in the portrait of Cleopatra. Wonderful as it is, the drawing of it suggests not so much passionate concentration or fiery force, as a sense of effortless and exultant mastery-what we feel, for example, in the portraits of Mercutio and Falstaff. And surely it is a total mistake to find in this portrait any trace of the distempered mood which disturbs our pleasure in Troilus and Cressida.' If the sonnets about the dark lady were, as I do not doubt, in some degree autobiographical, Shakespeare may well have used his personal experience both when he drew Cressida and when he drew Cleopatra. And, if he did, the story in the later play was the nearer to his own; for Antony might well have said what Troilus could never say,

'When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies.'

But in the later play, not only is the poet's vision unclouded, but his whole nature, emotional as well as intellectual, is free. The subject no more embitters or seduces him than the ambition of Macbeth. So that here too we feel the angelic strength of which Coleridge speaks. If we quarrel with the phrase at all, it must be because we seem to trace in Shakespeare's attitude something of the irony of superiority; and this may not altogether suit our conception of an angel.

I have still another sentence to quote from Coleridge.

The highest praise, or rather form of praise, of this play which I can offer in my own mind' (he writes), 'is the doubt which the perusal always occasions in me, whether the 'Antony and Cleopatra' is not, in all exhibitions of a giant power in its strength and vigour of maturity, a formidable rival of 'Macbeth,' Lear,' 'Hamlet,' and 'Othello.'

Unless the clause here about the giant power' may be taken to restrict the rivalry to the quality of angelic strength, Coleridge's doubt seems to show a lapse in critical judgment. To regard this tragedy as a rival of the famous four, whether on the stage or in the study, is surely an error. The world certainly has not so regarded it; and, though the world's reasons for its verdicts on works of art may be worth little, its mere verdict is worth much. Here, it seems to me, it must be accepted. One may notice that, in calling Antony and Cleopatra' wonderful or astonishing, we appear to be thinking first of the artist and his activity, while in the case of the four famous tragedies it is the product of this activity, the thing presented, that first engrosses us. I know that I am stating this difference too sharply, but I believe that it is often felt; and, if this is so, the fact is significant. It implies that, although 'Antony and Cleopatra' may be for us as wonderful an achievement as the greatest of Shakespeare's plays, it has not an equal value. Besides, in the attempt to rank it with them there is involved something more, and more important, than an error in valuation. There is a failure to discriminate the peculiar marks of Antony and Cleopatra' itself, marks which, whether or no it be the equal of' Hamlet' or 'Lear,' make it decidedly different. If I proceed to speak of some of these differences it is because they thus go to make the individuality of the play, and because in criticism they seem often not to be distinctly apprehended.

Why, let us begin by asking, is Antony and Cleopatra,' though so wonderful a work and so full of angelic strength, a play rarely acted? For a tragedy, it is not painful. Though unfit for children, it cannot be called indecent: some slight omissions, and such a flattening of the heroine's part as may confidently be expected, would leave it perfectly presentable. It is, no doubt, in the third and fourth Acts, very defective in construction.

Even on the Elizabethan stage, where scene followed scene without a pause, this must have been felt; and in our theatres it would be felt much more. There, in fact, these two and forty scenes could not possibly be acted as they stand. But defective construction would not distress the bulk of an audience, if the matter presented were that of 'Hamlet' or 'Othello,' of Lear' or 'Macbeth.' The matter must lack something which is present in those tragedies; and here is the point of difference which explains the fact that'Antony and Cleopatra' has never attained their popularity either on the stage or off it.

Most of Shakespeare's tragedies are dramatic in a special sense of the word, as well as in its general sense, from beginning to end. The story is not merely exciting and impressive from the movement of conflicting forces towards a terrible issue; but from time to time there come situations and events which, even apart from their bearing on the future, appeal most powerfully to the dramatic feelings-scenes of action or passion which agitate the audience with alarm, horror, painful expectation, or absorbing sympathies and antipathies. Think of the street fights in 'Romeo and Juliet,' the killing of Mercutio and Tybalt, the rapture of the lovers, and their despair when Romeo is banished. Think of the ghostscenes in the first Act of Hamlet,' the passion of the early soliloquies, the scene between Hamlet and Ophelia, the play-scene, the sparing of the King at prayer, the killing of Polonius. Is not Hamlet,' if you choose so to regard it, the best melodrama in the world? Think at your leisure of 'Othello,''Lear,' and 'Macbeth' from the same point of view; but consider here and now even the two tragedies which, as dealing with Roman history, are companions of 'Antony and Cleopatra.' Consider in Julius Cæsar' the first suggestion of the murder, the preparation for it in a 'tempest dropping fire,' the murder itself, the speech of Antony over the corpse, and the tumult of the furious crowd; in Coriolanus' the bloody battles on the stage, the scene in which the hero attains the consulship, the scene of rage in which he is banished. And remember that all this, in each of those seven cases, comes before the third Act is finished.

In the first three Acts of our play what is there resembling this? Almost nothing. People convers