the secret of the Master's inspiration when they
have discovered the sources of his plots. But what he took was by right
of eminent domain; and was he not to resuscitate a theme and make it
immortal, because some botcher had tried his hand upon it before, and
left it for stone-dead? Because he could not help throwing sizes, was he
to avoid the dice which for others would only come up ames-ace?

Up to the middle of 1854,[C] there had been published in England and on
the Continent eighty-eight complete editions of Shakspeare in English,
thirty-two in German, six in French, and five, more or less complete,
in Italian. Beside these, his works had been translated into Dutch,
(1778-82,) into Danish, (1807-28,) into Hungarian, (1824,) into Polish,
(1842,) and into Swedish (1847-51). The numerous American editions are
not reckoned in this statement; and, to give an adequate notion of the
extent of the Shakspeare-literature, we should add that the number of
separately-printed comments and other illustrative publications already
exceeds five hundred. No other poet except Dante has received such
appreciation,--and not even he, if we consider in Shakspeare's case the
greater bulk of the works and the difficulty of the language. After so
many people had used their best wit and had their say, could there be
any unconsidered trifle left for a new editor? Could the sharpest eyes
find more needles in this enormous haystack? We do not pretend to have
examined the whole of this polyglot library, nay, but for Herr Sillig,
we had never heard of most of the books in it, but we are tolerably
familiar with the more important English editions, and with some of the
German comments,[D] and we must say that the freshness of many of Mr.
White's observations struck us with very agreeable surprise. We are
not fond of off-hand opinions on any subject, much more on one so
multifarious and complex as this,--we are a great deal too ready with
them in America, and pronounce upon pictures and poems with a _b'hoyish_
nonchalance that would be amusing, were it not for its ill consequence
to Art,--but we love the expression of honest praise, of sifted and
considerate judgment, and we think that a laborious collation justifies
us in saying that in acute discrimination of aesthetic shades of
expression, and often of textual niceties, Mr. White is superior to any
previous editor.

[Footnote C: _Die Shakspere-Literatur bis Mitte_ 1854. Zusammengestellt
und hera