than likely that he was impatient of pedantic distinctions between
'pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical,
tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable or poem
unlimited.' But that would not prove that he never reflected on his
art, or could not explain, if he cared to, what _he_ thought would be
good general rules for the drama of his own time. He could give advice
about play-acting. Why should we suppose that he could not give advice
about play-making?

Still Shakespeare, though in some considerable degree a 'conscious'
artist, frequently sins against art; and if his sins were not due to
ignorance or inspiration, they must be accounted for otherwise. Neither
can there be much doubt about their causes (for they have more than one
cause), as we shall see if we take some illustrations of the defects
themselves.

Among these are not to be reckoned certain things which in dramas
written at the present time would rightly be counted defects. There are,
for example, in most Elizabethan plays peculiarities of construction
which would injure a play written for our stage but were perfectly
well-fitted for that very different stage,--a stage on which again some
of the best-constructed plays of our time would appear absurdly faulty.
Or take the charge of improbability. Shakespeare certainly has
improbabilities which are defects. They are most frequent in the winding
up of his comedies (and how many comedies are there in the world which
end satisfactorily?). But his improbabilities are rarely psychological,
and in some of his plays there occurs one kind of improbability which is
no defect, but simply a characteristic which has lost in our day much of
its former attraction. I mean that the story, in most of the comedies
and many of the tragedies of the Elizabethans, was _intended_ to be