Excerpt from An Introduction to Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream T remains to be seen, whether the labours of former commentators have, as some imagine, exhausted all that proper and useful annotation on the works of Shakespeare, which the lapse Of two centuries, and the continual change in our language and manners, have rendered necessary. We shall not here pause to consider those, if any there be, who despise even the most minute illustration of the works of our great dramatist. The merits of those works are beyond the reach of criticism, in the common acceptation of the term, and an unanimous voice has pronounced every thing relating to them and their author, hallowed and sacred. The judg ment of time has classed them amongst the noblest productions of human genius, and nothing now re mains for us, but to hail them as the immortal pro geny Of an immortal author. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.