Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, is the leader of the fairy band. He is the
Ariel of the MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM; and yet as unlike as can be to the
Ariel in the _Tempest_. No other poet could have made two such different
characters out of the same fanciful materials and situations. Ariel is a
minister of retribution, who is touched with the sense of pity at the woes
he inflicts. Puck is a mad-cap sprite, full of wantonness and mischief,
who laughs at those whom he misleads--"Lord, what fools these mortals
be!" Ariel cleaves the air, and executes his mission with the zeal of a
winged messenger; Puck is borne along on his fairy errand like the light
and glittering gossamer before the breeze. He is, indeed, a most Epicurean
little gentleman, dealing in quaint devices, and faring in dainty
delights. Prospero and his world of spirits are a set of moralists: but
with Oberon and his fairies we are launched at once into the empire of the
butterflies. How beautifully is this race of beings contrasted with the
men and women actors in the scene, by a single epithet which Titania gives
to the latter, "the human mortals"! It is astonishing that Shakspeare
should be considered, not only by foreigners, but by many of our own
critics, as a gloomy and heavy writer, who painted nothing but "gorgons
and hydras, and chimeras dire." His subtlety exceeds that of all other
dramatic writers, insomuch that a celebrated person of the present day
said that he regarded him rather as a metaphysician than a poet. His
delicacy and sportive gaiety are infinite. In the MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
alone, we should imagine, there is more sweetness and beauty of
description than in the whole range of French poetry put together. What we
mean is this, that we will produce out of that single play ten passages,
to which we do not think any ten passages in the works of the French poets
can be opposed, displaying equal fancy and imagery. Shall we mention the
remonstrance of Helena to Hermia, or Titania's description of her fairy
train, or her disputes with Oberon about the Indian boy, or Puck's account
of himself and his employments, or the Fairy Queen's exhortation to the
elves to pay due attendance upon her favourite, Bottom; or Hippolita's
description of a chace, or Theseus's answer? The two last are as heroical
and spirited as the others are full of luscious tenderness. The reading of
this play is like wandering in a grove by moonlight: the descriptions
breathe a sweetness like odours thrown from beds of flowers....
The MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, when acted, is converted from a delightful
fiction into a dull pantomime. All that is finest in the play is lost in
the representation. The spectacle was grand; but the spirit was
evaporated, the genius was fled.--Poetry and the stage do not agree well
together. The attempt to reconcile them in this instance fails not only of
effect, but of decorum. The _ideal_ can have no place upon the stage,
which is a picture without perspective: everything there is in the
fore-ground. That which was merely an airy shape, a dream, a passing
thought, immediately becomes an unmanageable reality. Where all is left to
the imagination (as is the case in reading) every circumstance, near or
remote, has an equal chance of being kept in mind, and tells accordingly
to the mixed impression of all that has been suggested. But the
imagination cannot sufficiently qualify the actual impressions of the
senses. Any offence given to the eye is not to be got rid of by
explanation. Thus Bottom's head in the play is a fantastic illusion,
produced by magic spells: on the stage it is an ass's head, and nothing
more; certainly a very strange costume for a gentleman to appear in. Fancy
cannot be embodied any more than a simile can be painted; and it is as
idle to attempt it as to personate _Wall_ or _Moonshine_. Fairies are not
incredible, but fairies six feet high are so. Monsters are not shocking,
if they are seen at a proper distance. When ghosts appear at mid-day, when
apparitions stalk along Cheapside, then may the MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM be
represented without injury at Covent-garden or at Drury-lane. The boards
of a theatre and the regions of fancy are not the same thing.