evidence; he has a sincere desire to illustrate his author rather than
himself; he is a man of the world, as well as a scholar; he comprehends
the mastery of imagination, and that it is the essential element as
well of poetry as of profound thinking; a critic of music, he
appreciates the importance of rhythm as the higher mystery of
versification. The sum of his qualifications is large, and his work is
honorable to American letters.

Though our own studies have led us to somewhat intimate acquaintance
with Elizabethan literature, it is with some diffidence that we bring
the criticism of _dilettanti_ to bear upon the labors of five years of
serious investigation. We fortify ourselves, however, with Dr.
Johnson's dictum on the subject of Criticism:--"Why, no, Sir; this is
not just reasoning. You _may_ abuse a tragedy, though you cannot make
one. You may scold a carpenter who has made a bad table, though _you_
cannot make a table; it is not your trade to make tables." Not that we
intend to abuse Mr. White's edition of Shakspeare, but we shall speak
of what seem to us its merits and defects with the frankness which
alone justifies criticism.

We have spoken of Mr. White's remarkable qualifications. We shall now
state shortly what seem to us his faults. We think his very acumen
sometimes misleads him into fancying a meaning where none exists, or at
least none answerable to the clarity and precision of Shakspeare's
intellect; that he is too hasty in his conclusions as to the
pronunciation of words and the accuracy of rhymes in Shakspeare's day,
and that he has been seduced into them by what we cannot help thinking
a mistaken theory as to certain words, as _moth_ and _nothing_, for
example; that he shows, here and there, a glimpse of Americanism,
especially misplaced in an edition of the poet whose works do more than