Minutes of Proceedings. 51 



degree fitted for the conduct of such a research, by combining in him- 

 self several qualifications but seldom united. To the clear insight of 

 the critic he adds the sympathetic enthusiasm of the poet ; and with 

 Shakesperian learning, with all that has been written on Shakesperian 

 subjects, whether at home or abroad, he is, perhaps, more conversant 

 than any other living scholar. He has thus been enabled to furnish 

 what the voice of the best judges pronounces to be the best extant 

 solution of the profoTindly interesting question to which I have re- 

 ferred, and to produce a work which has not merely achieved a great 

 present success, but will long continue, as I believe, to be the 

 cherished companion and guide of the Shakesperian student. 



These general remarks will have sufficiently indicated the spirit 

 in which Professor Dowden has discussed the aesthetic and psycholo- 

 gical characteristics of the personages of the Shaksperian di'ama. It 

 would be impossible for me to notice in detail his treatment of those 

 subjects, but I may venture to point out his masterly comparison of 

 the mental peculiarities of Romeo, of Hamlet, and of Brutus. Those 

 grandly elaborated types of tragic passion, each of whom by the over- 

 mastery in the one of sensuous emotion, in the second of abstract me- 

 ditation, and in the third of stoic idealism pervading their mental 

 nature, had lost the faculty of dealing suitably with the requirements 

 of practical life, and, having become the mere instruments in events 

 which they had lost all power to control, were led on to those tragical 

 issues of which we have all read with interest and sympathy. His 

 critical appreciation of the variety in Shakspere's treatment of the 

 supernatural as an element of dramatic composition appears to me also 

 peculiarly just and elegant, where he contrasts the earlier period 

 when genial and playful Puck, Oberon, and Titania, carry on the 

 amusing mystifications of the " Midsummer Night's Dream," with the 

 later period where the horrid witchery of Demoniac chants lures Macbeth 

 to his fate by double meanings ; and, finally, where with the kindly 

 grace of Ariel, and the wisdom of Prospero supernaturally matured, 

 such powers are shown to be employed only as ministers of justice 

 and of mercy, to be surrendered, once that the good object of their ex- 

 ercise has been accomplished. 



The President here presented the Gold Medal to Professor Edward 

 Dowden. 



