Note 278 — Chapter V

Homer Smith quotes as Halliwell's the description of the play as 'one of the finest specimens of pastoral poetry in our language, partaking of the best properties of Guarini's and Tasso's poetry, without being a servile imitation of either.' He has been misled into supposing that the comments in the Dictionary of Plays are original. The above first appears in the Biographia Dramatica of 1812, and may therefore be ascribed to Stephen Jones. All Halliwell did was to omit the further words, 'its style is at once simple and elevated, natural and dignified.' The whole description is of course in the very worst style of critical claptrap. Halliwell reprinted the 'fairy' scenes in his Illustrations of the Fairy Mythology of A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare Soc., 1845), though how they were supposed to illustrate anything of the kind we are not informed.