— 84—

nificent. His are the large hands that have helped to shape the world. His utterance is the rich-toned speech of one who is master of events— who has never known a shrill or eager feeling. His nuptial day is at hand; and while the other lovers are agitated, bewildered, incensed, Theseus, who does not think of himself as a lover, but rather as a beneficent conqueror, remains in calm possession of his joy. Theseus, a grand ideal figure, is to be studied as Shakspere's conception of the heroic man of action in his hour of en- joyment and of leisure. With a splendid capacity for enjoyment, gracious to all, ennobled by the glory, implied rather than explicit, of great foregone achievement, he stands as centre of the poem, giving their true proportions to the fairy tribe upon the one hand, and upon de other to the„human mor- tals“... Theseus, who has nothing antique or Grecian about him, is an idealized study from the life. Perhaps he is idealized Essex, perhaps idealized Southampton. Perhaps some night a dramatic company was ordered to perform in pre- sence of a great Elizabethan noble— we know not whom — who needed to entertain his guests, and there, in a mo- ment of fine imaginative vision, the poet discovered Theseus“.

„»All's well that ends well“ is of a very much disputed date: Knight assigns it to 1590, Ulrici to 1590— 93, Delius to 1596— 1599, Drake to 1598, Chalmers to 1599, the New Shakspere Society(Furnivall) to 1589, respectively to 1601,2, Stokes to cir. 1592, resp. to cir. 1604, Gervinus to 1592— 1605,6, Dowden to 1601— 2, Hertzberg to 1603, Fleay to 1604, Malone to 1606. Metre and style may be the decisive reasons to place this piece late, or to admit a late revision, but those who defend an early date, support their hypothesis by the delineation of the characters, and the adherents to the theory of a sole late composition find the characterization quite suitable to that supposition.

Hermann Isaac(Die Sonett-Periode in Shakespeares Leben, Sh. J. XIX, 1884) gives utterance to the former opinion in the following manner:„I quite accede to Ulrici's opinion, who places it in 1590— 3, with the remark that 1593