fied when he had done this. In 'Love's Labor's Lost,'
Shakspere is trying to amuse by inventive wit and youthful gaiety and
ingenuity of device, just as Moliere in the 'Etourdi' is enjoying his
own complicating of comic imbroglios, not yet having anything of
importance to say on the stage, but practising against the time when he
should want to say something. Neither in the English comedy nor in the
French is there any purpose other than the desire to please by the
devices of the theater.

There is so little hint of a deeper meaning in either 'Love's Labor's
Lost' or the 'Etourdi,' of a moral, so to speak, of a message of
ulterior significance, that, if Shakspere and Moliere had died after
these plays were produced, nobody would ever have suspected that either
youthful playwright had it in him to develop into a philosophic observer
of the deeper realities of life. Of course, neither of them was long
satisfied with this dexterous display of technical adroitness alone;
and, as they grew in years, we find their plays getting richer in
meaning and dealing more seriously with the larger problems of
existence. But technic was never despised; and, if it was not always the
chief end of the playwright, it remained the means whereby he was
enabled to erect the solid framework of masterpieces like 'Othello' and
'Tartuffe,' in which the craftsmanship is overshadowed by the nobler
qualities, no doubt, but in which the stark technical skill is really
more abundant than in the earlier and emptier plays.

As Shakspere and Moliere matured mentally and morally, so also did they
grow in facility of accomplishment, in the ease with which they could
handle the ever-present problems of exposition and construction. The
student of dramaturgy notes with increasing delight the ingenuity with
which the first appearance of Tartuffe is prepared; and he finds an
almost equal joy in the bolder beginnings of 'Romeo and Juliet' and of
'Hamlet,' where the difficulty was less, it may be, but where the
interest of the craftsman in the excellence of his device is quite as
obvious. Shakspere was the greatest of dramatic poets and Moliere was
the greatest of comic dramatists; and both of them were good workmen,
taking an honest pride in the neatness with which they finished a job.
In his later years, Shakspere seems to have relaxed a little his
interest in technic, and the value of his work is at once seen to
suffer. Altho his mind is as powerful as ever up