the second. In any case, the earlier version was not published till some years after the Venus and Adonis.' But what, perhaps, is even more to the point, the quotation is one which, from the circumstances of the case, could hardly have been chosen by any but a scholar, or at least by one who knew the original well. From their setting in the Elegy,' the lines would fail to attract special attention and be relatively unimportant in a translation. On the other hand, in the original poem, they have a distinctive emphasis and are full of concentrated meaning and power. The Elegy' is a spirited vindication of poetry from the envious criticism of those who represented the poet as an idler, ignobly shirking the public duties which, as a reputable citizen, he ought to discharge. In reply, Ovid proudly asserts that the position of the true poet is higher than any to be gained by wealth or rank or public honours, that in his works he leaves an immortal heritage to men through which his nobler essence not only survives, but outlasts all the symbols and monuments of earthly greatness. In illustration of this, he commemorates some of the greatest poets of the past, including Homer, Hesiod, Sophocles, Menander, Ennius, Lucretius, Virgil, Tibullus, Gallus; and after going through the inspiring roll, he virtually says: With these I take my part, their labours and rewards are the only objects of my ambition, their life the only life I care to live.' It is a characteristic utterance on the part of Ovid, and expresses the fixed resolve of his nobler nature. But it is perhaps still more characteristic in the mouth of Shakespeare, when, conscious of great powers, and resolved to find, or create, an ample field for their exercise, he set out on his life's journey with no help from fortune or friends, and no ultimate hope or desire beyond the poet's crown. In these lines he avows himself the child of Apollo, and declares that henceforth his elixir vite will be full draughts from the Castalian spring. The same proud note of confidence in himself and devotion to his art reappears again and again in the Sonnets,' and here too, as we shall see, he echoes the confident predictions of future fame in which Ovid indulges at the close of his greatest work. But the earlier quotation shows that Shakespeare had extended his studies in Ovid, not only beyond the books usually read in the schools, the 'De Tristibus' and the 'Metamorphoses,' but beyond the utmost limits where the help of a translation was available. I may next take another point of evidence, which, though comparatively small and indirect, appears to tell with some force in the same direction. It is well known that Shakespeare derived several of the names occurring in his dramas, such as Autolycus, directly from Ovid. Some of these have curious points of interest connected with them. But there is one, about which little has been said, that is perhaps more remarkable and interesting than any besides the name of the fairy queen, Titania. Of this name so accomplished a student of Shakespeare as Mr. Ward says, singularly enough: The figure of the elf-queen Shakspere might have found in the "Wife of Bath's spere's invention, and may have been suggested by Diana, who, as King James I. informs us, "amongst us was called the Phairee,” though Simrock (ii. 34) derives the same from Titti (children), the stealing of whom is a favourite pursuit of the elfin spirits.' Both the German critic and the English historian had apparently forgotten that the name is traceable to Ovid, and that as used by him it has a very distinctive significance. So far as I know, however, Mr. Keightley is the only critic who has connected the name with Ovid; and he does so very generally, without bringing out in any detail the meaning and value of the fact. His statement is that Titania occurs once in the "Metamorphoses' as a designation of Diana. But in reality the name occurs not once only, but several times, not as the designation of a single goddess, but of several female deities, supreme or subordinate, descended from the Titans. On this ground it is applied to Diana, to Latona, to Circe, to Pyrrha, and Hecate. As Juno is called by the poets Saturnia, on account of her descent from Saturn, and Minerva, on less obvious or more disputed grounds, is termed Tritonia, s0 Diana, Latona, and Circe are each styled by Ovid Titania. This designation illustrates, indeed, Ovid's marked power of so employing names as to increase both the musical flow and imaginative effect of his verse. The name Titania, as thus used, embodies rich and complex associations connected with the silver bow, the magic cup, and the triple crown. It may be said, indeed, to embrace in one comprehensive symbol the whole female empire of mystery and night belonging to classical mythology. Diana, Latona, Hecate are all goddesses of night, queens of the shadowy world, ruling over its mystic elements and spectral powers. The common name thus awakens recollections of gleaming huntresses in dim and dewy woods, of dark rites and potent incantations under moonlit skies, of strange aerial voyages, and ghostly apparitions from the under-world. It was, therefore, of all possible names the one best fitted to designate the queen of the same shadowy empire, with its phantom troops and activities, in the Northern mythology. And since Shakespeare, with prescient inspiration, selected it for this purpose, it has naturally come to represent the whole world of fairy beauty, elfin adventure, and goblin sport connected with lunar influences, with enchanted herbs, and muttered spells. The Titania of Shakespeare's fairy mythology may thus be regarded as the successor of Diana and other regents of the night belonging to the Greek Pantheon. Shakespeare himself appears to support this view in a line over which a good deal of eritical ink has been shed. It occurs in the invocation to the Fairies in the Merry Wives of Windsor:' Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, You moonshine revellers, and shades of night, Attend your office, and your quality. The deities of the Greek mythology were instruments of destiny the second. In any case, the earlier version was not published till some years after the Venus and Adonis.' But what, perhaps, is even more to the point, the quotation is one which, from the circumstances of the case, could hardly have been chosen by any but a scholar, or at least by one who knew the original well. From their setting in the ‘Elegy,' the lines would fail to attract special attention and be relatively unimportant in a translation. On the other hand, in the original poem, they have a distinctive emphasis and are full of concentrated meaning and power. The Elegy' is a spirited vindication of poetry from the envious criticism of those who represented the poet as an idler, ignobly shirking the public duties which, as a reputable citizen, he ought to discharge. In reply, Ovid proudly asserts that the position of the true poet is higher than any to be gained by wealth or rank or public honours, that in his works he leaves an immortal heritage to men through which his nobler essence not only survives, but outlasts all the symbols and monuments of earthly greatness. In illustration of this, he commemorates some of the greatest poets of the past, including Homer, Hesiod, Sophocles, Menander, Ennius, Lucretius, Virgil, Tibullus, Gallus; and after going through the inspiring roll, he virtually says: With these I take my part, their labours and rewards are the only objects of my ambition, their life the only life I care to live.' It is a characteristic utterance on the part of Ovid, and expresses the fixed resolve of his nobler nature. But it is perhaps still more characteristic in the mouth of Shakespeare, when, conscious of great powers, and resolved to find, or create, an ample field for their exercise, he set out on his life's journey with no help from fortune or friends, and no ultimate hope or desire beyond the poet's crown. In these lines he avows himself the child of Apollo, and declares that henceforth his elixir vite will be full draughts from the Castalian spring. The same proud note of confidence in himself and devotion to his art reappears again and again in the Sonnets,' and here too, as we shall see, he echoes the confident predictions of future fame in which Ovid indulges at the close of his greatest work. But the earlier quotation shows that Shakespeare had extended his studies in Ovid, not only beyond the books usually read in the schools, the 'De Tristibus' and the 'Metamorphoses,' but beyond the utmost limits where the help of a translation was available. I may next take another point of evidence, which, though comparatively small and indirect, appears to tell with some force in the same direction. It is well known that Shakespeare derived several of the names occurring in his dramas, such as Autolycus, directly from Ovid. Some of these have curious points of interest connected with them. But there is one, about which little has been said, that is perhaps more remarkable and interesting than any besides-the name of the fairy queen, Titania. Of this name so accomplished a student of Shakespeare as Mr. Ward says, singularly enough: The figure of the elf-queen Shakspere might have found in the "Wife of Bath's spere's invention, and may have been suggested by Diana, who, as King James I. informs us, "amongst us was called the Phairee," though Simrock (ii. 34) derives the same from Titti (children), the stealing of whom is a favourite pursuit of the elfin spirits.' Both the German critic and the English historian had apparently forgotten that the name is traceable to Ovid, and that as used by him it has a very distinctive significance. So far as I know, however, Mr. Keightley is the only critic who has connected the name with Ovid; and he does so very generally, without bringing out in any detail the meaning and value of the fact. His statement is that Titania occurs once in the • Metamorphoses' as a designation of Diana. But in reality the name occurs not once only, but several times, not as the designation of a single goddess, but of several female deities, supreme or subordinate, descended from the Titans. On this ground it is applied to Diana, to Latona, to Circe, to Pyrrha, and Hecate. As Juno is called by the poets Saturnia, on account of her descent from Saturn, and Minerva, en less obvious or more disputed grounds, is termed Tritonia, so Diana, Latona, and Circe are each styled by Ovid Titania. This designation illustrates, indeed, Ovid's marked power of so employing names as to increase both the musical flow and imaginative effect of his verse. The name Titania, as thus used, embodies rich and complex associations connected with the silver bow, the magic cup, and the triple crown. It may be said, indeed, to embrace in one comprehensive symbol the whole female empire of mystery and night belonging to classical mythology. Diana, Latona, Hecate are all goddesses of night, queens of the shadowy world, ruling over its mystic elements and spectral powers. The common name thus awakens recollections of gleaming huntresses in dim and dewy woods, of dark rites and potent incantations under moonlit skies, of strange aerial voyages, and ghostly apparitions from the under-world. It was, therefore, of all possible names the one best fitted to designate the queen of the same shadowy empire, with its phantom troops and activities, in the Northern mythology. And since Shakespeare, with prescient inspiration, selected it for this purpose, it has naturally come to represent the whole world of fairy beauty, elfin adventure, and goblin sport connected with lunar influences, with enchanted herbs, and muttered spells. The Titania of Shakespeare's fairy mythology may thus be regarded as the successor of Diana and other regents of the night belonging to the Greek Pantheon. Shakespeare himself appears to support this view in a line over which a good deal of eritical ink has been shed. It occurs in the invocation to the Fairies in the Merry Wives of Windsor:' Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, You moonshine revellers, and shades of night, Attend your office, and your quality. The deities of the Greek mythology were instruments of destiny the second. In any case, the earlier version was not published till some years after the Venus and Adonis.' But what, perhaps, is even more to the point, the quotation is one which, from the circumstances of the case, could hardly have been chosen by any but a scholar, or at least by one who knew the original well. From their setting in the Elegy,' the lines would fail to attract special attention and be relatively unimportant in a translation. On the other hand, in the original poem, they have a distinctive emphasis and are full of concentrated meaning and power. The Elegy' is a spirited vindication of poetry from the envious criticism of those who represented the poet as an idler, ignobly shirking the public duties which, as a reputable citizen, he ought to discharge. In reply, Ovid proudly asserts that the position of the true poet is higher than any to be gained by wealth or rank or public honours, that in his works he leaves an immortal heritage to men through which his nobler essence not only survives, but outlasts all the symbols and monuments of earthly greatness. In illustration of this, he commemorates some of the greatest poets of the past, including Homer, Hesiod, Sophocles, Menander, Ennius, Lucretius, Virgil, Tibullus, Gallus; and after going through the inspiring roll, he virtually says: With these I take my part, their labours and rewards are the only objects of my ambition, their life the only life I care to live.' It is a characteristic utterance on the part of Ovid, and expresses the fixed resolve of his nobler nature. But it is perhaps still more characteristic in the mouth of Shakespeare, when, conscious of great powers, and resolved to find, or create, an ample field for their exercise, he set out on his life's journey with no help from fortune or friends, and no ultimate hope or desire beyond the poet's crown. In these lines he avows himself the child of Apollo, and declares that henceforth his elixir vite will be full draughts from the Castalian spring. The same proud note of confidence in himself and devotion to his art reappears again and again in the Sonnets,' and here too, as we shall see, he echoes the confident predictions of future fame in which Ovid indulges at the close of his greatest work. But the earlier quotation shows that Shakespeare had extended his studies in Ovid, not only beyond the books usually read in the schools, the 'De Tristibus' and the Metamorphoses,' but beyond the utmost limits where the help of a translation was available. I may next take another point of evidence, which, though comparatively small and indirect, appears to tell with some force in the same direction. It is well known that Shakespeare derived several of the names occurring in his dramas, such as Autolycus, directly from Ovid. Some of these have curious points of interest connected with them. But there is one, about which little has been said, that is perhaps more remarkable and interesting than any besides-the name of the fairy queen, Titania. Of this name so accomplished a student of Shakespeare as Mr. Ward says, singularly enough: The figure of the elf-queen Shakspere might have found in the Wife of Bath's |