Page:The Moor of Venice.djvu/17

6 and general truth to nature: it was not a true tale, but it might have been. "My intention in this work," says the author, "was, above all, to narrate events the most like truth, which might, together with innocent amusement, bring also some profit to every class of persons." On each of the grounds just mentioned, the claim of this Tale to considerable merit may be admitted, apart from any invidious comparison with the infinitely grander fabric which Shakspere has erected out of its simple materials.

At the same time, a comparison of a different and more legitimate kind may be profitably drawn. The greatness of any work of art, in conception, form, and execution, serves to enhance the interest which attaches to the elements of thought out of which it arose. With what eagerness do we regard the first studies of any of the great Masters,—tracing the elementary thoughts, their treatment, and changes under the artist's hand,—studies of nature, snatched with a passing stroke of the pencil, to be eventually immortalized in some masterpiece of art.

An interest akin to this is offered by the Tale before us: in it we trace the suggestions out of which was produced one of the most perfect triumphs of dramatic art. The incidents, traits of character, and motives which Shakspere has adopted, enlarged, altered, ennobled,—the skeleton which he