Merchant of Venice_,[24] and Collin's _Indledning_ to his edition
of the same play. Both are frankly compilations, but both are admirably
organized, admirably written, and full of a personal enthusiasm which
gives the old, sometimes hackneyed facts a new interest.

[24. _Shakespeares The Merchant of Venice. Med Anmaerkninger og
Indledning_. Udgivet af G. Wiesener. Kristiania, 1880.]

Wiesener's edition was published in 1880 in Christiania. The text is
that of the Cambridge edition with a few necessary cuttings to adapt it
for school reading. His introduction covers fifty-two closely printed
pages and gives, within these limits, an exceedingly detailed account of
the English drama, the Elizabethan stage, Shakespeare's life and work,
and a careful study of _The Merchant of Venice_ itself. The editor does
not pretend to originality; he has simply tried to bring together well
ascertained facts and to present them in the simplest, clearest fashion
possible. But the _Indledning_ is to-day, thirty-five years after it was
written, fully up to the standard of the best annotated school editions
in this country or in England. It is, of course, a little dry and
schematic; that could hardly be avoided in an attempt to compress such a
vast amount of information into such a small compass, but, for the most
part, the details are so clear and vivid that their mass rather
heightens than blurs the picture.

From the fact that nothing in this introduction is original, it is
hardly necessary to criticise it at length; all that may be demanded
is a short survey of the contents. The whole consists of two great
divisions, a general introduction to Shakespeare and a special
introduction to _The Merchant of Venice_. The first division is, in
turn, subdivided into seven heads: 1. _The Pre-Shakespearean Drama_.
2. _The Life of Shakespeare_. 3. _Shakespeare's Works--Order and
Chronology_. 4. _Shakespeare as a Dramatist_. 5. _Shakespeare's
Versification_. 6. _The Text of Shakespeare_. 7. _The Theatres of
Shakespeare's Time_. This introduction fills thirty-nine pages and
presents an exceedingly useful compendium for the student and the
general reader. The short introduction to the play itself discusses
briefly the texts, the sources, the characters, Shakespeare's relation
to his material and, finally, the meaning of the play. The last section
is, however, a translation from Taine and not Wiesener's at all.

The text itself is provided wit