Oberon, Titania and the whole train of fairies, to repeople the ancient
world and dance to the music of Mendelssohn:

Hand in hand, with fairy grace,
While we sing, and bless this place.

So in _The Merchant of Venice_ with its tragic figure of Shylock, who
is hurried off the stage to make place for a final scene of love, moonlight
and music; so in every other play of this period, the poetic dream of life
triumphs over its practical realities.

[Sidenote: THIRD PERIOD]

During the third period, of maturity of power (_cir._ 1600-1610),
Shakespeare was overshadowed by some personal grief or disappointment. He
wrote his "farewell to mirth" in _Twelfth Night_, and seems to have
reflected his own perturbed state in the lines which he attributes to
Achilles in _Troilus and Cressida_:

My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr'd,
And I myself see not the bottom of it.

His great tragedies belong to this period, tragedies which reveal increased
dramatic power in Shakespeare, but also his loss of hope, his horrible
conviction that man is not a free being but a puppet blown about by every
wind of fate or circumstance. In _Hamlet_ great purposes wait upon a
feeble will, and the strongest purpose may be either wrecked or consummated
by a trifle. The whole conception of humanity in this play suggests a
clock, of which, if but one small wheel is touched, all the rest are thrown
into confusion. In _Macbeth_ a man of courage and vaulting ambition