observed, that it would be better to withdraw the light from the stage, than to exhibit these miserable attempts at vanishing
, though could the thought have been well executed, he considered it a master-stroke of Shakspeare's.
it should be noticed, that Coleridge's opinion was, that some of the plays of our "myriad-minded" bard ought never to be acted, but looked on as poems to be read, and contemplated; and so fully was he impressed with this feeling, that in his gayer moments he would often say, "There should be an Act of Parliament to prohibit their representation."
Here
he
excelled: he has no incongruities, no gross illusions. In the management of the supernatural, the only successful poets among our own countrymen have been Shakspeare and Coleridge. Scott has treated it well in the
Bride of Lammermoor