Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

The Designs by P. KONEWKA. Engraved by W. H. MORSE ; Vignette by H. W. SMITH. Boston : Roberts Brothers.

KONEWKA’S illustrations in silhouette to “ Faust ” were a wonder of vivid action and refined expression ; but whoever looked at them must have felt a fear that what could give such an exquisite surprise must fail in repetition or in wider application. The power that lay in mere tenderness and beauty of outline — all the rest that goes to make up the charm of a picture being hidden from the eye in the massive black-upon-white of the work— was so much of a revelation that one suspected it a trick, — marvellous, delightful, yet a trick. Could it be done twice, and not weary ? This was the question, and here is the answer. Yes, it can be done twice, and be just as fascinating as at first. We do not know but the “ Midsummer Night’s Dream ” is better than the “ Faust.” It certainly has greater variety, and affords more scope for the exercise of Konewka’s curious art, which is here playful and pathetic and comical, while it was there tragical and grotesque. Our reader imagines the scenes and figures which have been chosen from that beautiful vision of fairy-life and lover-life in the woods, and from the passages in which Bully Bottom and his friends appear ; but without looking at the illustrations he can have no idea of the delicacy and strength, the cunningness and humor, with which all this airiest sport of Shakespeare’s genius is interpreted. Yet there is nothing but densest black upon white, save here and there a semi-transparent wing, or floating mantle, a dangling knot of ribbon, a little light let through the ringlets of the women, or the men’s beards, or between expanded fingers or under slightly lifted arms. The outline of the nude fairies is clear and soft like that of sculpture, while in the draperies is much of the vivacity of painting. We did not mean to name any particular illustration, but we cannot help speaking of that in which Puck and a hairy meet from opposite sides of a thistle-stalk as surpassingly pretty, unless that where Hermia is shown “ a Vixen when she went to school ”— fighting the larger and timider Helena — is even more taking in its sauciness. The best of the comical folk is “The Moon” appearing with the thornbush, lantern, and dog, in which there is even finer delineation of character than in the others, though character is delicately and clearly suggested in all, and no less in the pathetic than in the droll people. With a little parting of the lips, the whole bewilderment aiul heart-break of the lovelorn maids is portrayed ; and with the gesture of hands or arms, the half of whose action is lost in the black of the figure, the pleading and the repulsion of the enchanted lovers is shown.

We forebode ever so much imitation of Konewka’s work by inferior hands, and possibly enough to make us weary of the original ; but in the mean time no one need deny himself the enjoyment of it. Perhaps this enjoyment is all the keener because it cannot be called satisfaction, there being in these performances a mystery and suggestiveness that continually provoke the imagination.

We must not leave speaking of the book without mentioning the head which adorns the title-page, and which is alike admirable as a steel engraving and as a face of lifelike beauty and sweetness.