ss, and the execrable
vileness of a smooth iniquity. Perhaps I ought to have added the _Merchant
of Venice_; but here too the same remarks apply. It was an old tale; and
substitute any other danger than that of the pound of flesh (the
circumstance in which the improbability lies), yet all the situations and
the emotions appertaining to them remain equally excellent and
appropriate. Whereas take away from the _Mad Lover_ of Beaumont and
Fletcher the fantastic hypothesis of his engagement to cut out his own
heart, and have it presented to his mistress, and all the main scenes must
go with it.

Kotzebue is the German Beaumont and Fletcher, without their poetic powers,
and without their _vis comica_. But, like them, he always deduces his
situations and passions from marvellous accidents, and the trick of
bringing one part of our moral nature to counteract another; as our pity
for misfortune and admiration of generosity and courage to combat our
condemnation of guilt as in adultery, robbery, and other heinous
crimes;--and, like them too, he excels in his mode of telling a story
clearly and interestingly, in a series of dramatic dialogues. Only the
trick of making tragedy-heroes and heroines out of shopkeepers and
barmaids was too low for the age, and too unpoetic for the genius, of
Beaumont and Fletcher, inferior in every respect as they are to their
great predecessor and contemporary. How inferior would they have appeared,
had not Shakespeare existed for them to imitate;--which in every play, more
or less, they do, and in their tragedies most glaringly:--and yet--(O shame!
shame!)--they miss no opportunity of sneering at the divine man, and
sub-detracting from his merits!

To return to _Lear_. Having thus in the fewest words, and in a natural
reply to as natural a question,--which yet answers the secondary purpose of
attracting our attention to the difference or diversity between the
characters of Cornwall and Albany,--provided the _premisses_ and _data_, as
it were, for our after insight into the mind and mood of the person, whose
character, passions, and sufferings are the main subject-matter of the
play;--from Lear, the _persona patiens_ of his drama, Shakespeare passes
without delay to the second in importance, the chief agent and prime
mover, and introduces Edmund to our acquaintance, preparing us with the
same felicity of judgment, and in the same easy and natural way, for his
character in the seemingly casual commun