TO THE READER. THE plays known as Shakespeares are at the present time universally acknowledged to be the Greatest birth of time, the grandest production of the human mind. Their author also is generally recognised as the greatest genius of all the ages. The more the marvclIous plays are studied, the more wonderful they arc seen to be. Classical scholars are amazed at the prodigious amount of knowledge of classical lore which they display. Lawyers declare ,that their author must take rank among the greatest of lawyers, and must have been learned not only in the theory of lam, but also intimateIy acquainted with its forensic practice. In like manner, travellers feel certain that the author must have visited the foreign cities and countries tvhich he so minutely and graphically describes. It is true that at a dark period for English literature certain critics denied the possibility of Bohemia bcing accurately described as by the sea, and pointed out the manifest absurdity of speaking of...