"—— in the laboratory of the chemist matter easily passes through all conditions, the solid, liquid, and gaseous, as if in a sort of phantasmagoria; and his highest discoveries even now are pointing to the conclusion, that the bodies which make up the solid portion of our earth may, simply by the dissolution of existing combinations, be ultimately resolved into a permanently gaseous form."—Nichols' Architecture of the Heavens, p. 147.
Had we no other presumption to lead us to Shakspeare's true meaning but what is afforded by the expression, "into air—thin air," it ought, in my opinion, to be amply sufficient; for no rational person can entertain a doubt that Shakspeare intended the repetition, "thin air," to have reference to the simile that was to follow. The globe itself shall dissolve, and, like this vision, leave not a rack behind! In what was the resemblance to the vision to consist, if not in melting, like it, into thin air? into air unobscured by vapour, rarified from the slightest admixture of rack or cloud.
Shakespeare knew that atmospheric rack is not insubstantial; that it is corporeal like the globe itself, of which it is a part; and that, so long as a particle of it remained, dissolution could not be complete.
And shall we reject this exquisite philosophy—this profundity of thought—to substitute our own mean and common-place ideas?
A. E. B.
Leeds, July 22.
P.S.—Apart from the philosophical beauty of this wonderful passage, there are other aspects in which it may be studied with not less interest.
How true is the poetical image of the rack as the last object of dissipation! the expiring evidence of combustion! the lingering cloudiness of solution!