22 AUGUST 1863, Page 24

The Shakespeare Treasury of Subject Quotations. By W. Hoe. (Lock-

wood and Co.)—The object of this small work appears to be to enable any one to illustrate any subject by an apt quotation from Shakespeare at a moment's notice ; and the means adopted for the attainment of that end consist in the arrangement of the passages selected under a number of distinct heads. The present volume is a mere experiment, and contains quotations from only four of the comedies. We cannot say we think much of Mr. Hoe's plan. His book could never be anything higher than a kind of gradus for the use of writers who introduce quotations in a merely mechanical and business-like manner. And even these gentle- men would be liable to disappointment when, on turning to Mr. Hoe in search of something poetical on the subject of sleep, they find nothing more available for their purpose than the somewhat unmanageable state- ment, "By my halidom, I was fast asleep."